TORY 


J 


M 


LIBRARY  OF   THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Sectian .'...L.^.  "^ 


The  Star  of  Bethlehem. 


THE    NATIVITY. 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY 

ruvToF  P;;, 

STORY  OF  THE  SAVIOUR^^ 

A  FULL  AND  CAPTIVATING  NARRATIVE  OF  THE  THRILLING  SCENES 

AND  EVENTS  IN 

THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

FROM  BETHLEHEM  TO  THE  CROSS 

COMPRISING 

THE   BIRTH,    INFANCY   AND"  EARLY  LIFE  OF  JESUS;   HIS  BAPTISM  AND  PUBLIC  MINISTRY; 

BEAUTIFUL  PARABLES  AND  DISCOURSES ;   JOURNEYS  IN  GALILEE  AND  JUDEA  ; 

WONDERFUL   MIRACLES;   PATHETIC   SCENES   OF  SUFFERING,    AND 

HIS  SUBLIME   VICTORY  OVER   DEATH: 

INCLUDING 

Fascinating  Descriptions  of  the  Mannei^s,  Customs  and  Traditions  of  the  Jews. 

THE  WHOLE   FORMING 

A   COMPLETE   AND   GRAPHIC   RECORD   OF   THE   HISTORY   AND   TEACHINGS   OF   OUR 
LORD    AND   SAVIOUR  JESUS    CHRIST. 


By  canon  FARRAR,  D.D.,  F.R.S., 

Of  Westminster. 


SUPERBLY  EMBELLISHED  WITH  NEARLY  200  ENGRAVINGS. 


CHICAGO,   ILLINOIS: 

BANKS  &  CO., 

No.  103  STATE  St. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1890,  by 

J.   R.  JONES. 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


N  FULFILLING  a  task  so  difficult  and  so  important  as  that  of 
writing  the  Life  of  Christ,  I  feel  it  to  be  a  duty  to  state  the 
causes  which  led  me  to  undertake  it,  and  the  principles  which  have 
guided  me  in  carrying  it  to  a  conclusion. 

I.  It  has  long  been  the  desire  and  aim  of  the  publishers  of 
this  work  to  spread  as  widely  as  possible  the  blessings  of  knowl- 
edge; and,  in  special  furtherance  of  this  design,  they  wished  to 
place  in  the  hands  of  their  readers  such  a  sketch  of  the  Life  of 
Ciirist  on  earth  as  should  enable  them  to  realize  it  more  clearly,  and  to  enter 
more  thoroughly  into  the  details  and  sequence  of  the  Gospel  narratives.  They 
therefore  applied  originally  to  an  eminent  theologian,  who  accepted  the  proposal, 
but  whose  elevation  to  the  Episcopate  prevented  him  from  carrying  it  out. 

Under  these  circumstances  application  was  made  to  me,  and  I  could  not  at 
first  but  shrink  from  a  labor  for  which  I  felt  that  the  amplest  leisure  of  a  lifetime 
would  be  insufficient,  and  powers  incomparably  greater  than  my  own  would  still 
be  utterly  inadequate.  But  the  considerations  that  were  urged  upon  me  came  no 
doubt  with  additional  force  from  the  deep  interest  with  which,  from  the  first,  I 
contemplated  the  design.  I  consented  to  make  the  effiart,  knowing  that  I  could 
at  least  promise  to  do  my  best,  and  believing  that  he  who  does  the  best  he 
can,  and  also  seeks  the  blessing  of  God  upon  his  labors,  cannot  finally  and 
wholly    fail. 

And  I  have  reason  to  be  thankful  that  I  originally  entered  upon  the  task, 
and,  in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  have  still  persevered  in  it.  If  the  following  pages 
in  any  measure  fulfill  the  objects  with  which  such  a  Life  ought  to  be  written,  they 
should  fill  the  minds  of  those  who  read  them  with  solemn  and  not  ignoble 
thoughts  ;  they  should  "  add  sunlight  to  daylight  by  making  the  happy  happier  ; " 
they  should  encourage  the  toiler  ;  they  should  console  the  sorrowful  ;  they  should 
point  the  weak  to  the  one  true  source  of  moral  strength.  But  whether  this  book 
be  thus  blessed  to  high  ends,  or  whether  it  be  received  with  harshness  and  indif- 
ference, nothing  at  least  can  rob  me  of  the  deep  and  constant  happiness  which  I 
have  felt  during  almost  every  hour  that  has  been  spent  upon  it.  Though,  owing 
to  serious  and  absorbing  duties,  months  have  often  passed  without  my  finding  an 
opportunity  to  write  a  single  line,  yet,  even  in  the  midst  of  incessant  labor  at 
other  things,  nothing  forbade  that  the  subject  on  which  I  was  engaged  should  be 
often  in  my  thoughts,  or  that  I  should  find  in  it  a  source  of  peace  and  happiness 


ii.  PREFACE. 

different,  alike  in  kind  and  in  degree,  from  any  which  other  interests  could  either 
give  or  take  away. 

2.  After  I  had  in  some  small  measure  prepared  myself  for  the  task,  I  seized, 
in  the  year  1870,  the  earliest  possible  opportunity  to  visit  Palestine,  and  especially 
those  parts  of  it  which  will  be  for  ever  identified  with  the  work  of  Christ  on  earth. 
Amid  those  scenes  wherein  He  moved — in   the 

"  holy  fields 


Over  whose  acres  walked  those  blessed  feet 
Which,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  were  nailed, 
For  our  advantage,  on  the  bitter  cross" — 

in  the  midst  of  those  immemorial  customs  which  recalled  at  every  turn  the 
manner  of  life  He  lived — at  Jerusalem,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  at  Bethlehem, 
by  Jacob's  Well,  in  the  Valley  of  Nazareth,  along  the  bright  strand  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  in  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon — many  things  came  home  to  me,  for 
the  first  time,  with  a  reality  and  vividness  unknown  before.  I  returned  more  than 
ever  confirmed  in  the  wish  to  tell  the  full  story  of  the  Gospels  in  such  a  manner 
and  with  such  illustrations  as — with  the  aid  of  all  that  was  within  my  reach  of 
that  knowledge  which  has  been  accumulating  for  centuries — might  serve  to  enable 
at  least  the  simple  and  the  unlearned  to  understand  and  enter  into  the  human 
surroundings  of  the  life  of  the  Son  of  God. 

3.  But,  while  I  say  this  to  save  the  book  from  being  judged  by  a  false 
standard,  and  with  reference  to  ends  which  it  was  never  intended  to  accomplish, 
it  would  be  mere  affectation  to  deny  that  I  have  hoped  to  furnish  much  which 
even  learned  readers  may  value.  Though  the  following  pages  do  not  pretend  to 
be  exhaustive  or  specially  erudite,  they  yet  contain  much  that  men  of  the  highest 
learning  have  thought  or  ascertained.  The  books  which  I  have  consulted  include 
the  researches  of  divines  who  have  had  the  privilege  of  devoting  to  this  subject, 
and  often  to  some  small  fragment  of  it,  the  best  years  of  laborious  and  uninter- 
rupted lives.  No  one,  I  hope,  could  have  reaped,  however  feebly,  among  such 
harvests,  without  garnering  at  least  something,  which  must  have  its  value  for  the 
professed  theologian  as  well  as  for  the  unlearned.  And  because  I  believed — and 
indeed  most  earnestly  hoped — that  this  book  might  be  acceptable  to  many  of  my 
brother-clergymen,  I  have  admitted  into  the  notes  some  quotations  and  references 
which  will  be  comparatively  valueless  to  the  ordinary  reader.  But,  with  this  double 
aim  in  view,  I  have  tried  to  avoid  "  moving  as  in  a  strange  diagonal,"  and  have 
ne-ver  wholly  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  I  had  to  work  with  no  higher  object  than 
that  thousands,  who  have  even  fewer  opportunities  than  myself,  might  be  the  better 
enabled  to  read  that  one  book,  beside  which  even  the  best  and  profoundest 
treatises  are  nothing  better  than  poor  and  stammering  fragments  of  imperfect 
commentary. 

4.  It  is  perhaps  yet  more  important  to  add  that  this  Life  of  Christ 
is  avowedly  and  unconditionally  the  work  of  a  believer.  Those  who  expect 
to    find    in   it    new   theories    about    the    divine    personality   of   Jesus,  or   brilliant 


PREFACE.  iii. 

combinations  of  mythic  cloud  tinged  by  the  sunset  imagination  of  some  decadent 
belief,  will  look  in  vain.  It  has  not  been  written  with  any  direct  and  special 
reference  to  the  attacks  of  skeptical  criticism.  It  is  not  even  intended  to  deal 
otherwise  than  indirectly  with  the  serious  doubts  of  those  who,  almost  against 
their  will,  think  themselves  forced  to  lapse  into  a  state  of  honest  disbelief. 
I  may  indeed  venture  to  hope  that  such  readers,  if  they  follow  me  with  no 
unkindly  spirit  through  these  pages,  may  here  and  there  find  considerations  of 
real  weight  and  importance,  which  will  solve  imaginary  difficulties  and  supply 
an  answer  to  real  objections.  Although  this  book  is  not  mainly  controversial, 
and  would,  had  it  been  intended  as  a  contribution  to  polemical  literature,  have 
been  written  in  a  very  different  manner,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  will  prove 
wholly  valueless  to  any  honest  doubter  who  reads  it  in  a  candid  and  uncon- 
temptuous  spirit.  Hundreds  of  critics,  for  instance,  have  impugned  the  authority 
of  the  Gospels  on  the  score  of  the  real  or  supposed  contradictions  to  be  found 
in  them.  I  am,  of  course,  familiar  with  such  objections,  which  may  be  found 
in  all  sorts  of  books,  from  Strauss's  Lebeti  Jesu  and  Renan's  Vie  de  Jesus,  down 
to  Sir  R.  Hanson's  Jesus  of  History,  and  the  English  Life  of  Jesus,  by  Mr. 
Thomas  Scott.  But,  while  I  have  .■ever  consciously  evaded  a  distinct  and  for- 
midable difficulty,  I  have  constantly  endeavored  to  show  by  the  mere  silent 
course  of  the  narrative  itself  that  many  of  these  objections  are  by  no  means 
insuperable,  and  that  many  more  are  unfairly  captious  or  altogether  fantastic. 
5.  If  there  are  questions  wider  and  deeper  than  the  minutiae  of  criticism, 
into  which  I  have  not  fully  and  directly  entered,  it  is  not  either  from  having 
neglected  to  weigh  the  arguments  respecting  them,  or  from  any  unwillingness 
to  state  the  reasons  why,  in  common  with  tens  of  thousands  who  are  abler 
and  wiser  than  myself,  I  can  still  say  respecting  every  fundamental  doctrine 
of  the  Christian  faith,  Manet  immota  fides.'  Writing  as  a  believer  to  be- 
lievers, as  a  Christian  to  Christians,  surely,  after  nearly  nineteen  centuries  of 
Christianity,  any  one  may  be  allowed  to  rest  a  fact  of  the  Life  of  Jesus  on 
the  testimony  of  St.  John  without  stopping  to  write  a  volume  on  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  Fourth  Gospel  ;  or  may  narrate  one  of  the  Gospel  miracles  with- 
out deeming  it  necessary  to  answer  all  the  arguments  which  have  been  urged 
against  the  possibility  of  the  supernatural.  After  the  long  labors,  the  powerful 
reasoning,  and  the  perfect  historical  candor  with  which  this  subject  has  been 
treated  by  a  host  of  apologists,  it  is  surely  as  needless  as  it  is  impossible  to 
lay  again,  on  every  possible  occasion,  the  very  lowest  foundations  of  our  faith. 
As  regards  St.  John,  therefore,  I  have  contented  myself  with  the  merest  and 
briefest  summary  of  some  of  the  evidence  which  to  me  still  seems  adequate 
to  prove  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  Gospel  which  passes  by  his  name, 
and  minuter  indications  tending  to  strengthen  that  conviction  will  be  found 
scattered  throughout  the  book.  It  would  indeed  be  hypocrisy  in  me  to  say 
with  Ewald  that  "  eve7y  argument,  from  every  quarter  to  which  we  can  look, 
I  "  Faith  remains  unmoved." 


<V.  PREFACE. 

every  trace  and  record,  combine  together  to  render  any  serious  doubt  upon  the 
question  absolutely  impossible  ;  "  but  I  do  say  that,  after  the  fairest  and  fullest 
consideration  which  I  have  been  able  to  give  to  a  question  beset  with  diffi- 
culties, the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Johannine  authorship  seem  to  me  to  be 
immensely   preponderant. 

Nor  have  I  left  the  subject  of  the  credibility  of  miracles  and  the  general 
authenticity  of  the  Gospel  narratives  entirely  untouched,  although  there  was  the 
less  need  for  my  entering  fully  upon  those  questions  in  the  following  pages 
from  my  having  already  stated  elsewhere,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  the  grounds 
of  my  belief.  The  same  remark  implies  to  the  yet  more  solemn  truth  of  the 
Divinity  of  Christ.  That — not  indeed  as  surrounded  with  all  the  recondite  inquiries 
about  the  mpix^P^oi'i  or  communicatio  idiomatum,  the  hypostatic  union,  the  ab- 
stract impeccability,  and  such  scholastic  formulae,  but  in  its  broad  scriptural 
simplicity — was  the  subject  of  the  Hulsean  Lectures  before  the  University  of 
Cambridge  in  the  year  1870.  In  those  lectures  I  endeavored  to  sketch  what 
has  ever  seemed  to  my  mind  the  most  convincing  external  evidence  of  our 
faith,  namely,  "  The  Witness  of  History  to  Christ."  Those  who  have  rejected 
the  creed  of  the  Church  in  this  particular,  approach  the  subject  from  a  totally 
opposite  point  to  our  own.  They  read  the  earlier  chapters  of  St.  Luke  and 
St.  Matthew,  and  openly  marvel  that  any  mind  can  believe  what  to  them 
appears  to  be  palpable  mythology ;  or  they  hear  the  story  of  one  of  Christ's 
miracles  of  power — the  walking  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  or  turning  the  water  into 
wine — and  scarcely  conceal  their  insinuated  misgiving  as  to  the  honesty  of  those 
who  can  accept  such  narratives  as  true.  Doubtless  we  should  share  their  con- 
victions in  these  respects,  if  we  approached  the  subject  in  the  same  spirit  and 
by  the  same  avenues.  To  show  that  we  do  not  and  why  we  do  not  so  approach 
it,  is — incidentally   at    least — one  of  the   objects   of  this   book. 

The  skeptic — and  let  me  here  say  at  once  that  I  hope  to  use  no  single 
word  of  anger  or  denunciation  against  a  skepticism  which  I  know  to  be  in 
many  cases  perfectly  honest  and  self-sacrificingly  noble — approaches  the  exami- 
nation of  the  question  from  a  point  of  view  the  very  opposite  to  that  of  the 
believer.  He  looks  at  the  majestic  order  and  apparently  unbroken  uniformity 
of  Law,  until  the  Universe  becomes  to  him  but  the  result  mechanically  evolved 
from  tendencies  at  once  irreversible  and  self-originated.  To  us  such  a  concep- 
tion is  wholly  inconceivable.  Law  to  us  involves  the  necessity  of  postulating 
a  Lawgiver,  and  "  Nature,"  which  we  only  use  as  an  unscientific  and  imagina- 
tive synonym  for  the  sum-total  of  observed  phenomena,  involves  in  our  con^ 
ceptions  the  Divine  Power  of  whose  energy  it  is  but  the  visible  translucence 
We  believe  that  the  God  and  Creator  of  "Nature"  has  made  Himself  known 
to  us,  if  not  by  a  primitive  intuition,  at  any  rate  by  immediate  revelation  to 
our  hearts  and  consciences.  And  therefore  such  narratives  as  those  to  which 
I  have  alluded  are  not  nakedly  and  singly  presented  to  us  in  all  their  unsup- 
rovted    and    startling   difficulty.     To    us    they   are    but    incidental    items    in    a  faith 

4 


PREFACE.  V. 

which  lies  at  the  very  bases  of  our  being — they  are  but  fragments  of  that 
great  whole  which  comprises  all  that  is  divine  and  mysterious  and  supernatural 
in  the  two  great  words,  Christianity  and  Christendom.  And  hence,  though  we 
no  longer  prominently  urge  the  miracles  of  Christ  as  the  proofs  of  our  religion, 
vet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  regard  them  as  stumbling-blocks  in  the 
path  of  an  historical  belief.  We  study  the  sacred  books  of  all  the  great  relig- 
ions of  the  world  ;  we  see  the  effect  exercised  by  those  religions  on  the  mind 
of  their  votaries  ;  and  in  spite  of  all  the  truths  which  even  the  worst  of  them 
enshrined,  we  watch  the  failure  of  them  all  to  produce  the  inestimable  bless- 
in  "^s  which  we  have  ourselves  enjoyed  from  infancy,  which  we  treasure  as  dearly 
as  our  life,  and  which  we  regard  as  solely  due  to  the  spread  and  establish- 
ment of  the  faith  we  hold.  We  read  the  systems  and  treatises  of  ancient 
philosophy,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  great  and  noble  elements  in  which  they 
abound,  we  see  their  total  incapacity  to  console,  or  support,  or  deliver,  or 
regenerate  the  world.  Then  we  see  the  light  of  Christianity  dawning  like  a 
tender  day-spring  amid  the  universal  and  intolerable  darkness.  From  the  first, 
that  new  religion  allies  itself  with  the  world's  utter  feeblenesses,  and  those 
feeblenesses  it  shares  ;  yet  without  wealth,  without  learning,  without  genius, 
without  arms,  without  anything  to  dazzle  and  attract — the  religion  of  outcasts 
and  exiles,  of  fugitives  and  prisoners — numbering  among  its  earliest  converts 
not  man}'  wise,  not  many  noble,  not  many  mighty,  but  such  as  the  gaoler  of 
Philippi  and  the  runaway  slave  of  Colosss — with  no  blessing  apparently  upon 
it  save  such  as  cometh  from  above — with  no  light  whatever  about  it  save  the 
light  that  comes  from  heaven — it  puts  to  flight  kings  and  their  armies  ;  it 
breathes  a  new  life,  and  a  new  hope,  and  a  new  and  unknown  holiness  into 
a  guilty  and  decrepit  world.  This  we  see  ;  and  we  see  the  work  grow,  and 
increase,  and  become  more  and  more  irresistible,  and  spread  "  with  the  gentle- 
ness of  a  sea  that  caresses  the  shore  it  covers."  And  seeing  this  we  recall 
the  faithful  principle  of  the  wise  and  tolerant  Rabbi,  uttered  more  than  l,8oo 
years  ago — "  If  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  naught  ; 
but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  it,  lest  haply  ye  be  found  to  fight 
against   God." 

And  when  we  ha^'e  thus  been  led  to  see  and  to  believe  that  the  only  religion 
in  the  world  which  ha  established  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  holiness,  and  rendered 
common  the  attainment' of  that  ideal,  has  received  in  conspicuous  measure  the 
blessing  of  God,  we  exavaine  its  truths  with  a  deeper  reverence.  The  record  of 
these  truths — the  record  of  that  teaching  which  made  them  familiar  to  the  world — 
we  find  in  the  Gospel  narrative.  And  that  narrative  reveals  to  us  much  more.  It 
not  only  furnishes  us  with  an  adequate  reason  for  the  existence  and  for  the  tri- 
umphs of  the  faith  we  hold,  but  it  also  brings  home  to  us  truths  which  affect  our 
hearts  and  intellects  no  less  powerfully  than  "the  starry  heavens  above  and  the 
moral  law  within."     Taught  to  regard  ourselves  as  children  of  God,  and    common 

brothers  in  His  great  family  of  man,  we  find  in   the    Gospels  a  revelation  of  God 

5 


vi.  PREFACE. 

in  His  Son  which  enables  us  to  know  Him  more,  and  to  trust  Him  more  abso- 
lutely, and  to  serve  Him  more  faithfully,  than  all  which  we  can  find  in  all  the 
other  books  of  God,  whether  in  Scripture,  or  history,  or  the  experience  of  life,  or 
those  unseen  messages  which  God  has  written  on  every  individual  heart.  And 
finding  that  this  revelation  has  been  recorded  by  honest  men  in  narratives  which, 
however  fragmentary,  appear  to  stand  the  test  of  history,  and  to  bear  on  the  face 
of  them  every  mark  of  transparent  simplicity  and  perfect  truthfulness — prepared  for 
the  reception  of  these  glad  tidings  of  God's  love  in  man's  redemption  by  the  facts 
of  the  world  without,  and  the  experiences  of  the  heart  within — we  thus  cease  to 
find  any  overwhelming  difficulty  in  the  record  that  He  whom  we  believe  to  have 
been  the  Son  of  God — He  who  alone  has  displayed  on  earth  the  transcendant 
miracle  of  a  sinless  life — should  have  walked  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  or  turned  the 
water  into  wine. 

And  when  we  thus  accept  the  truth  of  the  miracles  they  become  to  us  moral 
lessons  of  the  profoundest  value.  In  considering  the  miracles  of  Jesus  we  stand 
in  a  wholly  different  position  to  the  earlier  disciples.  To  them  the  evidence  of 
the  miracles  lent  an  overwhelming  force  to  the  teachings  of  the  Lord  ;  they  were 
as  the  seal  of  God  to  the  proclamation  of  the  new  kingdom.  But  to  us  who,  for 
nineteen  centuries,  have  been  children  of  that  kingdom,  such  evidence  is  needless. 
To  the  Apostles  they  were  the  credentials  of  Christ's  mission  ;  to  us  they  are  but 
fresh  revelations  of  His  will.  To  us  they  are  works  rather  than  signs,  revelations 
rather  than  portents.  Their  historical  importance  lies  for  us  in  the  fact  that  with- 
out them  it  would  be  impossible  to  account  for  the  origin  and  spread  of  Christi- 
anity- We  appeal  to  them  not  to  prove  the  truth  of  Christianity,  but  to  illustrate 
its  dissemination.  But  though  to  us  Christianity  rests  on  the  basis  of  a  Divine 
approval  far  more  convincing  than  the  display  of  supernatural  power — though  to 
us  the  providence  which  for  these  two  milleniums  has  ruled  the  destinies  of 
Christendom  is  a  miracle  far  more  stupendous  in  its  evidential  force  than  the  rais- 
ing of  the  dead  or  the  enlightenment  of  the  blind — yet  a  belief  in  these  miracles 
enables  us  to  solve  problems  which  would  otherwise  be  insolvable,  as  well  as  to 
embrace  moral  conceptions  which  would  otherwise  have  found  no  illustration.  To 
one  who  rejects  them — to  one  who  believes  that  the  loftiest  morals  and  the 
divinest  piety  which  mankind  has  ever  seen  were  evoked  by  a  religion  which  rested 
on  errors  or  on  lies — the  world's  history  must  remain,  it  seems  to  me,  a  hopeless 
enigma  or  a  revolting  fraud. 

6.  Referring  to  another  part  of  the  subject,  I  ought  to  say  I  do  not  regard  as 
possible  any  final  harmony  of  the  Gospels.  Against  any  harmony  which  can  be 
devised  some  plausible  objection  could  be  urged.  On  this  subject  no  two  writers 
have  ever  been  exactly  agreed,  and  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  Gospel 
notices  of  chronology  are  too  incomplete  to  render  certainty  attainable.  I  have,  of 
coarse,  touched  directly,  as  well  as  indirectly,  on  such  questions  as  the  length  of 
thf  ministry  ;  and  wherever  the  narrative  required  some  clear  and  strong  reason 
for  adopting  one  view  rather  than  another    on   some   highly  disputed    point — such. 


PREFACE.  vii. 

for  instance,  as  the  Feast  alluded  to  in  John  v.  i — I  have  treated  the  question  as 
fully  as  was  consistent  with  brevity,  and  endeavored  to  put  the  reader  in  posses- 
sion of  the  main  facts  and  arguments  on  which  the  decision  rests.  But  it  would 
have  been  equally  unprofitable  and  idle  to  encumber  my  pages  with  endless  con- 
troversy on  collateral  topics  which,  besides  being  dreary  and  needless,  are  such  as 
admit  of  no  final  settlement.  In  deciding  upon  a  particular  sequence  of  events, 
we  can  only  say  that  such  a  sequence  appears  to  us  a  probable  one,  not  by  any 
means  that  we  regard  it  as  certain.  In  every  instance  I  have  carefully  examined 
the  evidence  for  myself,  often  compressing  into  a  few  lines,  or  even  into  an  inci- 
dental allusion,  the  results  of  a  long  inquiry.  To  some  extent  I  agree  with  Stier 
and  Lange  in  the  order  of  events  which  they  have  adopted,  and  in  this  respect, 
as  well  as  for  my  first  insight  into  the  character  of  several  scenes  (acknowledged 
in  their  place),  I  am  perhaps  more  indebted  to  the  elaborate  work  of  Lange  than 
to  any  others  who  have  written  on  the  same  subject.  When  an  author  is  writing 
from  the  results  of  independent  thought  on  the  sum-total  of  impressions  formed 
during  a  course  of  study,  it  is  not  always  possible  to  acknowledge  specific  obliga- 
tions ;  but  whenever  I  was  consciously  indebted  to  others,  I  have,  throughout  the 
book,  referred — especially  to  Ewald,  Neander,  Schenkel,  Strauss,  Hase,  Sepp,  Stier, 
Ebrard,  Wieseler,  Hofmann,  Keim,  Caspari,  UUmann,  Delitzsch,  De  Pressense, 
Wallon,  Dupanloup,  Capecelatro,  Ellicott,  Young,  Andrews,  Wordsworth,  Alford, 
and  many  others  ;  as  well  as  to  older  writers  like  Bonaventura  and  Jeremy  Taylor. 
I  have  also  to  acknowledge  the  assistance  which  I  have  gained  from  the  writings 
of  Dean  Stanley,  Canons  Lightfoot  and  Westcott,  Professor  Plumptre,  Dr.  Gins- 
burg,  Mr.  Grove,  and  the  authors  of  articles  in  the  Encyclopedias  of  Ersch  and 
Grube,  Herzog,  Zeller,  Winer,  and  Dr.  W.  Smith.  Incidental  lights  have  of  course 
been  caught  from  various  archaeological  treatises,  as  well  as  works  of  geography 
and  travel,  from  the  old  Itineraries  and  Reland  down  to  Dr.  Thomson's  Land  and 
Book,  and  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon's  Holy  Land. 

7.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  this  book  is  almost  wholly  founded  on  an  inde- 
pendent study  of  the  four  Gospels  side  by  side.  In  quoting  from  them  I  have 
constantly  and  intentionally  diverged  from  the  English  version,  because  my  main 
object  has  been  to  bring  out  and  explain  the  scenes  as  they  are  described  by  the 
original  witnesses.  The  minuter  details  of  those  scenes,  and  therewith  the  accuracy 
of  our  reproduction  of  them,  depend  in  no  small  degree  upon  the  discovery  of  the 
true  reading,  and  the  delicate  observance  of  the  true  usage  of  words,  particles,  and 
lenses.  It  must  not  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  I  offer  these  translations — 
which  are  not  unfrequently  paraphrases — as  preferable  to  those  of  the  English 
version,  but  only  that,  consistently  with  the  objects  which  I  had  in  view,  I  have 
aimed  at  representing  with  more  rigid  accuracy  the  force  and  meaning  of  the  true 
text  in  the  original  Greek.  It  will  be  seen  too  that  I  have  endeavored  to  glean 
in  illustration  all  that  is  valuable  or  trustworthy  in  Josephus,  in  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  and  in  traditional  particulars  derived  from  the  writings  of  the  Fathers. 

8.  Some  readers  will    perhaps  be  surprised    by  the    frequency  of  the   allusions 

7 


viii.  PREFACE. 

to  Jewish  literature.  Without  embarking  on  "the  sea  of  the  Talmud"  (as  the 
Rabbis  themselves  call  it) — a  task  which  would  require  a  lifetime — a  modern 
reader  may  find  not  only  the  amplest  materials,  but  probably  all  the  materials  it 
can  offer  for  the  illustration  of  the  Gospel  history,  in  the  writings  not  of  Christians 
only,  but  also  of  learned  and  candid  Rabbis.  Not  only  in  the  well-known  treatises 
of  Lightfoot,  Schottgen,  Surenhuys,  Wagenseil,  Buxtorf,  Otho,  Reland,  Budaeus, 
Gfrorer,  Herzfeld,  McCaul,  Etheridge,  but  also  in  those  of  Jews  by  birth  or  re- 
ligion, or  both,  like  Geiger,  Jost,  Gratz,  Derenbourg,  Munk,  Frankl,  Deutsch, 
Rapliall,  Schwab,  Cohen,  any  one  may  find  large  quotations  from  the  original 
authorities  collected  as  well  by  adversaries  as  by  reverent  and  admiring  students. 
Further,  he  may  read  the  entire  Mishna  (if  he  have  the  time  and  patience  to  do 
so)  in  the  Latin  version  of  Surenhusius,  and  may  now  form  his  judgment  respect- 
ing large  and  important  treatises  even  of  the  Gemara,  from  such  translations  as 
the  French  one  of  the  Berachoth  by  M.  Moise  Schwab.  I  have  myself  consulted 
all  the  authorities  here  named,  and  have  gained  from  them  much  information  which 
seems  to  me  eminently  useful.  Their  researches  have  thrown  a  flood  of  light  on 
some  parts  of  the  Gospels,  and  have  led  me  to  some  conclusions  which,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  are  new.  I  have,  indeed,  in  the  second  Excursus  of  the  Appendix, 
shown  that  nothing  of  the  slightest  importance  can  be  gleaned  from  the  Talmudists 
about  our  Lord  Himself.  The  real  value  of  the  Rabbinic  writings  in  illustrating 
the  Gospels  is  indirect,  not  direct — archaeological,  not  controversial.  The  light 
•which  they  throw  on  the  fidelity  of  the  Evangelists  is  all  the  more  valuable 
because  it  is  derived  from  a  source  so  unsuspected  and   so  hostile. 

9.  If  in  any  part  of  this  book  I  have  appeared  to  sin  against  the  divine  law  of 
charity,  I  must  here  ask  pardon  for  it.  But  at  least  I  may  say  that  whatever 
trace  of  asperity  may  be  found  in  any  page  of  it,  has  never  been  directed  against 
men,  but  against  principles,  or  only  against  those  men  or  classes  of  men  in  long- 
past  ages  whom  we  solely  regard  as  the  representatives  of  principles.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  this  book  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  some  Jewish  readers,  and  to  these 
particularly  I  would  wish  this  remark  to  be  addressed.  I  have  reason  to  believe 
that  the  Jewish  race  have  long  since  learnt  to  look  with  love  and  reverence  on 
Him  whom  their  fathers  rejected  ;  nay,  more,  that  many  of  them,  convinced  by 
the  irrefragable  logic  of  history,  have  openly  acknowledged  that  He  was  indeed 
their  promised  Messiah,  although  they  still  reject  the  belief  in  His  divinity.  I  see, 
in  the  writings  of  many  Jews,  a  clear  conviction  that  Jesus,  to  whom  they  have 
quite  ceased  to  apply  the  terms  of  hatred  found  in  the  Talmud,  was  at  any  rate 
the  greatest  religious  Teacher,  the  highest  and  noblest  Prophet  whom  their  race 
produced.  They,  therefore,  would  be  the  last  to  defend  that  greatest  crime  in 
history — the  Crucifixion  of  the  Son  of  God.  And  while  no  Christian  ever  dreams 
of  visiting  upon  them  the  horror  due  to  the  sin  of  their  ancestors,  so  no  Jew  will 
charge  the  Christians  of  to-day  with  looking  with  any  feeling  but  that  of  simple 
abhorrence  on  the  long,  cruel,  and  infamous  persecutions  to  which  the  ignorance 
and  brutality  of   past  ages    have  subjected  their  great   and    noble    race.     We    may 


PREFACE.  ix. 

humbly  believe  that  the  day  is  fast  approaching  when  He  whom  the  Jews  crucified, 
and  whose  divine  revelations  the  Christians  have  so  often  and  so  grievously  dis- 
graced, will  break  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between  them,  and  make 
both  races  one  in  religion,  in  heart,  and  hfe — Semite  and  Aryan,  Jew  and  Gentile, 
united  to  bless  and  to  evangelize  the  world. 

lO.  One  task  alone  remains — the  pleasant  task  of  thanking  those  friends  to 
whose  ready  aid  and  sympathy  I  owe  so  much,  and  who  have  surrounded  with 
happy  memories  and  obligations  the  completion  of  my  work.  First  and  foremost, 
my  heartiest  and  sincerest  thanks  are  due  to  my  friends,  Mr.  C.  J.  Monro,  late 
Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  Mr.  R.  Garnett,  of  the  British  Museum. 
They  have  given  me  an  amount  -of  time  and  attention  which  leaves  me  most 
largely  indebted  to  their  unselfish  generosity ;  and  I  have  made  claims  on  their 
indulgence  more  extensive  than  I  can  adequately  repay.  To  my  old  pupil,  Mr.  H. 
J.  Boyd,  late  scholar  of  Brasenose  College,  Oxford,  I  am  indebted  for  the  table  of 
Contents.  I  ha%'e  a^so  to  thank  the  Rev.  Professor  Plumptre  and  Mr.  George 
Grove  not  only  for  the  warm  interest  which  they  have  taken  in  my  work,  but 
also  for  some  valuable  suggestions.  There  are  many  others,  not  here  named,  who 
will  believe,  without  any  assurance  from  me,  that  I  am  not  ungrateful  for  the  help 
which  they  have  rendered  ;  and  I  must  especially  offer  my  best  acknowledgements 
to  the  Rev.  T.  Teignmouth  Shore — but  for  whose  kind  encouragement  the  book 
would  not  have  been  undertaken — and  to  those  who  with  so  much  care  and 
patience  have  conducted  it  through  the  press. 

And  now  I  send  these  pages  forth  not  knowing  what  shall  befall  them,  but 
with  the  earnest  prayer  that  they  may  be  blessed  to  aid  the  cause  of  truth  and 
righteousness,  and  that   He  in  whose  name   they  are  written  may,  of  His  mercy, 

"  Forgive  them  where  they  fail  in  truth. 
And  in  His  wisdom  make  me  wise." 

F.  W.   F. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE     NATIVITY.  PAGE 

The  Fields  of  the  Shepherds — An  Eastern  Khan — The  Cave  of  Bethlehem — The  Enrollment — Joseph 
and  Mary — "No  room  for  them  in  the  inn" — The  Manger  and  the  Palace — The  Nativity — 
Adoration  of  the  Shepherds — Fancy  and  Reality — Contrast  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Apocrypha       -        33 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE   PRESENTATION    IN    THE   TEMPLE. 

Four  Circumstances  of  the   Infancy — Order  of  Events — The  Circumcision — The  name  Jesus — The 

Presentation    in   the  Temple — Simeon — Anna        --.--..-..43 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE   VISIT  OF   THE   MAGI. 

Importance  ot  the  Epiphany — Herod  the  Great — "Magi" — Traditions — Causes  of  their  Journey — 
General  Expectation  of  the  World — The  Star  in  the  East — Astronomical  Conjectures  of  Kepler, 
&c. — EvanescentStars— Gifts  of  the  Magi --47 

CHAPTER    IV. 

FLIGHT   INTO    EGYPT — MASSACRE   OF   THE   INNOCENTS. 

Departure  of  the  Magi — Legends  of  the  Flight  into  Egypt — Massacre  of  the  Innocents — Its  Historical 
Credibility — Character  of  Herod  the  Great — Silence  of  Josephus — Death  and  Burial  of  Herod 
the  Great — The  Spell  of  the  Herodian  Dominion  broken — Accession  of  Archelaus — Settlement  in 

Galilee SS 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  BOYHOOD   OF  JESUS. 

Geography  of  Palestine — Galilee — Nazareth — Reticence  of  the  Evangelists — Truthfulness  of  the  Gos- 
pels— Contrasted  with  the  Apocrypha!  Legends — Life  of  Galilean  Peasants — Imagination  and 
Fact — "  He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene  "------.-..-64 

CHAPTER    VI. 

JESUS    IN   THE   TEMPLE. 

Jesus  Twelve  Years  old — Journey  from  Nazareth  to  Jerusalem — Scenes  by  the  Way — Numbers  of 
Passover  Pilgrims — Jesus  missing  from  the  Caravan — The  Search — Rabbis  in  the  Temple — 
"Hearing  them  and  asking  them  questions  " — "  Why  did  ye  seek  Me?" — "  They  understood 
not  " — Submissiveness      ---.---...-----73 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  HOME   AT   NAZARETH. 

"  The  Carpenter" — Dignity  of  Poverty — Dignity  of  Toil — The  Common  Lot — Wisdom  better  than 
Knowledge — Originality — The  Language  spoken  by  Jesus — The  Books  of  God — Jesus  in  His 
Home — Work  and  Example  of  those  Years — Peacefulness — "The  brethren  of  the  Lord" — Soli- 
tude— The  Hill-top  at  Nazareth — Plain  of  Esdraelon — Centrality  of  Palestine         .        .        .        .        8r 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE   BAPTISM    OF  JOHN. 

Characteristics  of  the  Age — Darkness  deepest  before  Dawn — Asceticism — John  the  Baptist — His 
Character — His  Teaching — His  Audience — Scene  of  his  Teaching — His  Message — Bearing  of 
John  in  the  presence  of  Jesus— Why  Jesus  was  baptized — Recognition  as  the  Messiah         -        -        96 

CHAPTER    IX. 

THE    TEMPTATION. 

Quarantania — "  With  the  wild  beasts" — "  Forty  days  " — The  Moment  of  Exhaustion — Reality  of  the 
Temptation — "Tempted  like  as  we  are" — Fasting — Lapides  Jtidaici—T\i&  First  Temptation — 
Subtlety  of  it — "  Not  by  bread  alone  " — The  Suggested  Doubt — The  Order  of  the  Temptations — 
The  Temple  Pinnacle — The  Tempter's  Quotation — The  Splendid  Offer— The  Roman  Emperor 

—The  Victory lo5 

3" 


CONTENTS.  xi. 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  FIRST   APOSTLES.  ,^g„ 

St  John's  Gospel — "The  Lamb  of  God" — Andrew  and  John — Simon — Appearance  and  Personal 
Ascendency  of  Jesus — Philip — Nathaniel— "  Come  and  see" — "  Under  the  fig-tree  "—"  Angels 
ascending  and  descending"     ------........      ng 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   FIRST   MIRACLE. 

"On  the  third  day" — An  Eastern  Bridal — "  They  have  no  wine" — The  Answer  to  the  Virgin — The 

Miracle — Characteristics  of  this  and  other  Miracles 130 

CHAPTER  XU. 

THE   SCENE   OF  THE  MINISTRY. 

Contrast  between  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  the  Jordan  Valley — Beauty  of  Gennesarcth — Character  of 
the  Scenery — Its  present  Desolation  and  Past  Populousness — Prophecy  of  Isaiah — Centrality — 
Christ's  Teaching  there — Site  of  Capernaum  ...........      ijg 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

JESUS  AT  THE   PASSOVER. 

Visit  to  Jerusalem — Purification  of  the  Temple — State  of  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles — Crowd  of  Traders 
— Indignation  of  Jesus — Why  they  did  not  dare  to  resist — Question  of  the  Rulers — "  Destroy  this 
temple  " — Impression  made  by  the  Words — Their  deep  Significance — Extent  to  which  they  were 
understood 1^5 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

NICODEMUS. 

Talmudic  Allusions  to  Nicodemus — His  Character — Indirectness  of  his  Questions — Discourse  of  Jesus 
— His  Disciples  baptize — Continued  Baptism  of  John — .lEnon,  near  Salim — Complaint  of  John's 
Disciples — Noble  and  sad  Reply        ............  jjj 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   WOMAN   OF   SAMARIA. 

Retirement  of  Jesus  to  Galilee — Sychar — Noontide  at  the  Well — The  Scene — Conversation  with  the 
Woman — Jerusalem  and  Gerizim— Revelation  of  Messiahship — Return  of  Disciples— The  Fields 
White  unto  Harvest — Believing  Samaritans     ...........ijg 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

REJECTED   BY   THE   NAZARENES. 

Sequence  of  Events — A  perfect  "  Harmony  "  impossible — A  Prophet  in  his  own  Country — A  Jewish 
Synagogue — Nature  of  the  Service— Sermon  of  Jesus — Change  of  Feeling  in  the  Audience — 
Their  Fury — Escape  of  Jesus — Finally  leaves  Nazareth 166 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE   BEGINNING   OF  THE   GALILEAN  MINISTRY. 

The  Courtier's  Entreaty— His  Faith— Sequence  of  Events— St.  John  and  the  Synoptists— Jesus  stays  at 
Capernaum — His  First  Sabbath  there — Preaches  in  the  Synagogue — The  Demoniac — Peter's 
Mother-in.law — The  Evening — Eagerness  of  the  Multitude — His  Privacy  invaded — Preaches 
from  the  Boat — Call  of  Peter,  James,  and  John — "  Depart  from  me" — Publicans — The  Publican 
Apostle J  74 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT. 

A  Night  of  Prayer — Selection  of  the  Twelve — Conjectures  respecting  them — James  and  John — Peter 
— Kftrn  Hattln — Contrast  with  Moses  on  Sinai — Beatitudes— Sketch  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
— "Not  as  the  Scribes  "—Authority — Christ  and  other  Masters— Perfection— Beauty  and 
Simplicity 1S6 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

FURTHER   MIRACLES. 

A  Man   full  of  Leprosy — Violation  of  the  Letter — Why  was   Publicity  forbidden  ?— Deputation   of 

Batlanim — Message  of  the  Centurion — Pressure  of  the  Ministry — The  Interfering  Kinsmen         -      200 

CHAPTER  XX. 

JESUS    AT     N  A  I  N. 

Nain — A  Funeral — The  Widow's  Son  raised— Message  from  John  the  Baptist— Overclouding  of  his 
Faith— How  accounted  for— Machaerus— God's  Trial  of  His  Servants— Answer  of  Jesus— Splendid 

Eulogy  of  John— "The  least  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven" .      207 

11 


xii.  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  SINNER  AND  THE   PHARISEE.  „C, 

Simon  the  Pharisee — Jewish  Customs  at  Meals — The  Weeping  Woman — Simon's  Disgust — Answer  of 
Jesus — Parable  of  the  Debtors— Cold  Courtesy  of  Simon — Pardoning  of  Sins — Was  it  Mary  of 
Magdala  ? jij 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

JESUS  AS   HE   LIVED   IN   GALILEE. 

A  Scene  in  Galilee — Jesus  and  His  Followers — His  Aspect — A  Life  of  Poverty — of  Toil — of  Health — 

of  Sorrow — and  yet  of  Holy  Joy        ----.........      322 

CHAPTER   XXIII. 

A   GREAT   DAY    IN   THE   LIFE   OF  JESUS. 

Order  of  Events — Teaching  from  the  Boat — Parables — Parable  of  the  Sower — Other  Parables — Effec* 

produced — Urgent  Desire  for  Rest — The  Eastern  Shore — The  Three  Aspirants — The  Storm — 

'  "What  manner  of  Man  is  this?" — Miracles — Gergesa — The  Naked  Demoniac  from  the  Tombs — 

"Thy  name" — Loss  of  the  Swine — Alarm  of  the  Gadarenes — Their  Request — Request  of  the 

Demoniac  ----.-.--........      aj* 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE   DAY   OF  MATTHEW's   FEAST. 

Return  to  Capernaum — The  Paralytic  let  through  the  Roof — "  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee." — Feast  in 
Matthew's  House — Scorn  of  the  Pharisees — Question  about  Fasting — The  New  Wine  and  the 

Old 246 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
THE  DAY  OF  Matthew's  feast  (continued'). 
Jairus — The  Woman  with  the  Issue — The  Touch  of  Faith — Message  to  Jairus — The  Hired  Mourn- 

ers^Raising  of  Jairus'  Daughter — The  Blind  Men — They  disobey  Christ's  Injunction  -        -      25a 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

A   VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM. 

Phases  of  the  Ministry — Mission  of  the  Twelve — Their  Instructions — A  Feast  of  the  Jews — Arrange, 
ment  of  St.  John — Days  of  Jewish  Feasts — Nature  of  the  Purim  Feast — Reason  for  Christ's 
Presence    ------------------      2j»( 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE   MIRACLE   AT   BETHESDA. 

Pool  of  Bethesda — Interpolated  Verse — Healing  of  the  Impotent  Man — Jealous  Questioning — Sab- 
bath-breaking— The    Man's   Meanness — Anger   of   the    Rulers — Answer   of    Jesus — Dangerous 

Results 264 

CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

THE   MURDER   OK   JOHN   THE   BAPTIST. 

Return  to  Galilee — Herod  Antipas — Herodias^Consequences  of  the  Adulterous  Marriage — Credulity 
and  Unbelief — The  Banquet — Salome — Her  Request — Murder  of  the  Baptist — Herod's  Remorse — 
He  inquires  about  Jesus — Ultimate  Fate  of  Herodias      .........      273 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

FEEDING   OF    FIVE   THOUSAND— WALKING   ON   THE   SEA. 

Bethsaida  Julias — Hungry  Multitude — Miracle  of  the  Loaves — Excitement  of  the  Multitude — Dis- 
missal of  the  Disciples — Jesus  alone  on  the  Mountain — The  Disciples  alone  in  the  Storm — "  It 
is  I  " — Peter's  Boldness  and  Failure — Nature  of  the  Miracle  -         ..-.-.      28a 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE   DISCOURSE   AT  CAPERNAUM. 

Astonished  Query  of  the  Multitude — Reproof  of  Jesus — They  ask  for  a  Sign — His  Answer — The 
Bread  of  Life — Their  Dull  Materialism— Their  Displeasure — Abandonment  of  Jesus — Sad  Ques. 
tion  to  the  Disciples — Answer  of  Peter — Warning  to  Judas     ------..       290 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

GATHERING  OPPOSITION. 

Gathering  Clouds — I.  "  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee" — 2.  "A  gluttonous  man  and  a  winebibber" — 
3.  "Thy  disciples  fast  not" — 4.  "With  publicans  and  sinners" — "  Mercy,  not  sacrifice" — The 
Prodigal  Son — Religionism  and  Religion — 5.  Charges  of  violating  the  Sabbath — Jewish  Tradi- 
tions— Abhoth  and  Toldoth — i.  In  the  Corn-fields — Analogy  of  David's  Conduct — "  NoSabbatism 
in  the  Temple" — Incident  in  the  Codex  Bezae — ii.  The  Stonemason  with  the  Withered  Hand — 
Good  or  Evil  on  the  Sabbath  ? — The  Objectors  foiled — Unwashen  Hands — Jewish  Ablutions — 
"Your  Tradition" — The  Oral  Law — Hagadoth  and  Halachoth — "That  which  cometh  (rora  with- 
in "—Evil  Thoughts *97 

12 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XXXII. 

DEEPENING     OPPOSITION. 

Agitations  of  the  Life  of  Jesus — Prayer  at  Dawn — The  Lord's  Prayer — Parable  of  the  Importunate 
Friend — Lights  and  Shadows  of  the  Life  of  Jesus — The  Blind  and  Dumb  Demoniac — Exorcism — 
Slander  of  the  Scribes — Beelzebub — Answer  of  Jesus — Warning  against  Light  Words — Who  aro 
truly  blessed  ? — "  Master,  we  would  see  a  sign  " — Sign  of  the   Prophet  Jonah — Interference  of 


His  Kinsmen 


315 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE    DAY    OF    CONFLICT. 

Alone  with  Pharisees  at  the  Midday  Meal — Unwashen  Hands — Reproof  of  Jesus — The  Lawyers 
included  in  the  Reproof — Spurious  Civility — Open  Rupture — Danger  of  Jesus — He  goes  out  to 
the  Multitude — Denunciation  of  Hypo"-'-- — Foolish  Appeal — The  Parable  of  the  Rich  Fool — ■ 
Peter's  Question — Jesus  troubled  in  Sp.i.i.       .-. 32^ 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

AMONG     THE     HEATHEN. 

The  Regions  of  Tyre  and  Sidon — The  Syro-phenician  Woman — Her  Petition  apparently  Rejected — 
Her  Exalted  Faith — Her  Faith  rewarded — Heathen  Lands — Return  to  Decapolis — Deaf  and 
Dumb  Man — "  Ephphatha  !" — Reception  by  the  Multitudes — Feeding  of  the  Four  Thousand       -      331 

CHAPTER   XXXV. 

THE   GREAT   CONFESSION. 

Reception  of  Jesus  on  His  Return  to  Galilee — An  ill-omened  Conjunction — Demand  of  a  Sign — 
Reproof  and  Refusal — Sadness  of  Jesus — He  sails  away — The  Prophetic  Woe — Leaven  of  the 
Pharisees  and  of  Herod — Literal  Misinterpretation  of  the  Apostles — Healing  of  a  Blind  Man  at 
Bethsaida  Julias — On  the  road  to  Caesarea  Philippi — The  momentous  Questions — "  Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God  " — The  Rock — Foundation  of  the  Church — Misinterpretations — 
Warnings  about  His  Death — Rash  Presumption  of  Peter — "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  " — The 
Worth  of  the  Human  Soul — "  The  Son  of  Man  coming  in  His  Kingdom  "     -        -        -        -        -      336 

CHAPTER   XXXVI. 

THE     TRANSFIGURATION. 

The  Mountain — Not  Tabor,  but  Hermon — The  Vision — Moses  and  Elias — Bewildered  Words  of  Peter 

— The  Voice  from  Heaven — Fading  of  the  Vision — The  New  Elias -      351 

CHAPTER   XXXVII. 

THE   DEMONIAC   BOY. 

The  Contrast — The  Disciples  and  the  Scribes — Arrival  of  Jesus — The  Demoniac  Boy — Emotion  of 
Jesus — Anguish  of  the  Father — "If  thou  canst" — The  Deliverance — Power  of  Faith  to  remove 
Mountains — Secluded  Return  of  Jesus — Sad  Warnings— Dispute  which  should  be  the  Greatest — 
The  Little  Child — John's  Question — Offending  Christ's  Little  Ones — The  Unforgiving  Debtor    -      356 

CHAPTER   XXXVIII. 

A   BRIEF    REST    IN   CAPERNAUM. 

The  Temple  Tax — The  Collectors  come  to  Peter — His  rash  Answer — Jesus  puts  the  Question  in  its 

True  Light — The  Stater  in  the  Fish's  Mouth — Peculiar  Characteristics  of  this  Miracle        -        .      362 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

JESUS    AT   THE    FF..4ST   OF   TABERNACLES. 

Observances  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles — Presumption  of  the  Brethren  of  Jesus — "  I  go  not  up  yet 
unto  this  feast  " — Eager  Questions  of  the  Multitude — Their  differing  Opinions — Jesus  appears  in 
the  Temple — His  reproachful  Question — "  Thou  hast  a  devil" — Appeal  to  His  Works — Indigna- 
tion of  the  Sanhedrin — Observances  of  the  Last  Day  of  the  Feast — '  The  joy  of  the  drawing  of 
water" — "  Rivers  of  Living  Water  " — Divided  Opinions — "  Never  man  spake  like  this  Man  " — 
Timid  Interpellation  of  Nicodemus — Answering  Taunt  of  the  Pharisees      .....      366 

CHAPTER   XL. 

THE   WOMAN    TAKEN    IN   ADULTERY. 

Question  as  to  the  Genuineness  of  the  Narrative — The  Evidence  on  both  sides — Jesus  at  the  Mount 
of  Olives — Returns  at  Dawn  to  the  Temple— Hilarity  of  the  Feast — Immorality  of  the  Age — The 
Water  of  Jealousy — Base  Cruelty  of  the  Pharisees — The  Woman  dragged  into  the  Temple— 
"  What  sayest  Thou?" — Subtlety  of  the  Assault — Writing  on  the  Floor — "  Him  that  is  without  sin 
among  you  " — Conscience-stricken — Misery  left  alone  with  Mercy — "  Go,  and  sin  no  more" — 
Absolute  Calmness  of  Jesus  under  all  Attacks — Eighth  Day  of  the  Feast — The  great  Can- 
delabra—The Light  of  the  World— Agitating  Discussions  with  the  Jews— A  Burst  of  Fury — Jesus 
leaves  the  Temple      --------........      375 

13 


xiv.  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

THE  MAN   BORN   BLIND.  PAOB 

Jewish  Notion  of  Nemesis — "  Which  did  sin  ?" — "  Go  wash  in  the  Pool  of  Siloam  " — On  the  Sabbath 
Day — The  Man  examined  by  the  Sanhedrin— A  Sturdy  Nature — Perplexity  of  the  Sanhedrists — 
"  We  know  that  this  man  is  a  sinner" — Blandishments  and  Threats — The  Man  Excommunicated 
— Jesus  and  the  Outcast — True  and  False  Shepherds 387 

CHAPTER  XLH. 

FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE. 

The  Interval  between  the  Feasts  of  Tabernacles  and  Dedication — Great  Episode  in  St.  Luke — Char- 
acter of  the  Episode — Mission  of  the  Seventy — News  of  the  Galileans  massacred  by  Pilate — 
Teachings  founded  on  the  Event — Stern  Warnings — The  Barren  Fig-tree — The  Pharisees'  Plot 
to  hasten  His  Departure — "  Go  and  tell  this  fox  " — He.  ntipas — Jesus  sets  forth — Farewell  to 
the  Scene  of  His  Ministry — Fate  that  fell  on  the  Galileans — Jesus  e?ults  in  Spirit — "  Come  unto 
me  all  ye  that  labor  " — Noble  Joy     ------- 393 

CHAPTER  XUH. 

INCIDENTS   OF  THE  JOURNEY. 

Possible  Routes — The  Village  of  En-gannim— Churlishness  of  the  Samaritans — Passion  of  the  Sons  of 
Thunder — Gentle  Rebuke  of  Jesus — Counting  the  Cost — Peraa — The  Ten  Lepers — Thankless- 
ness — "  Where  are  the  nine  ? " 404 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 

TEACHINGS   OF   THE  JOURNEY. 

Sabbatical  Disputes — Foolish  Ruler  of  the  Synagogue— Healing  of  the  Bowed  Woman— Ar^umtnlum 
ad  hominem — Ignorant  Sabbatarianism — Religious  Espionage — The  Man  with  the  Dropsy — Ques- 
tion of  Jesus — Silence  of  Obstinacy — The  Man  Healed — Self-sufficiency  of  the  Pharisees — 
Struggles  for  Precedence — A  vague  Platitude— Parable  of  the  King's  Marriage-feast^The  Unjust 
Steward— Avarice  of  the  Pharisees— Their  Sycophancy  to  Herod— The  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus — 
"Are  there  few  that  be  saved?" — "What  must  I  do  to  obtain  Eternal  Life?" — The  Good 
Samaritan — Return  of  the  Seventy — The  Love  of  Publicans  and  Sinners — The  Parable  of  the 
Prodigal  Son— Solemn  Warnings— "  Where,  Lord?"— The  Eagles  and  the  Carcass      -        -        -      409 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

THE   FEAST   OF   DEDICATION. 

The  House  at  Bethany— Martha  and  Mary—"  The  one  thing  needful" — The  Chanfikkah— Solomon's 
Porch — Reminiscence  of  the  Feast — Jesus  suddenly  surrounded — "  How  long  dost  thou  hold  us 
in  suspense  ?" — No  Political  Messiah—"  I  and  MyFather  are  one  " — They  seek  to  stone  Him — 
Appeal  di  Jesus  to  His  Life  and  Works— He  retires  to  Bethany  beyond  Jordan    -        -        -        -      4^7 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

THE   LAST   STAY    IN    nER.f:A. 

Question  about  Divorce — Importance  of  the  Question— Hillel  and  Shammai — Dispute  as  to  the 
Meaning  of  Ervath  Dabhar—'Ls.y.  Interpretations — Both  Schools  wrong — Simple  Solution  of  the 
Question — Permission  of  Divorce  by  Moses  only  temporary — Corruption  of  the  Age — Teachings 
of  Jesus  about  Moral  Purity — Celibacy  and  Marriage — Jesus  blesses  Little  Children — The  eager 
Young  Ruler — "Good  Master" — "What  must  I  do?" — An  heroic  Mandate — "The  Great 
Refusal" — Discouragement  of  the  Disciples — Hundredfold  Rewards — The  Laborers  in  the  Vine- 
yard   434 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

THE   RAISING   OF   LAZARUS. 

Message  to  Jesus — Two  Davs'  Delay—"  Let  us  also  go  that  we  may  die  with  Him  " — He  approaches 
Bethany— Martha  Meets  Him— "  The  Resurrection  and  the  Life" — Mary's  Agony— Deep 
Emotion  of  Jesus— Scene  at  the  Grave— "  Lazarus,  come  forth" — Silence  of  the  Synoptists — 
Meeting  at  the  House  of  Caiaphas— His  wicked  Policy— The  Fiat  of  Death— Retirement  to 
Ephraim  444 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

JERICHO     AND     BETHANY. 

Pilgrim  Caravans — Jesus  on  His  Way — Revelation  of  the  Crowning  Horror — The  Sons  of  Zebedee-— 
The  Cup  and  the  Baptism — Humility  before  Honor — Jericho — Bartimaeus — Zacchaeus—His 
Repentance — Parable  of  the  Pounds — Events  which  suggested  it — Arrival  at  Bethany — "Simon 
the  Leper  " — Intentional  Reticence  of  the  Svnoptists — Mary's  Offering — Inward  Rage  of  Judas — 
Blessing  of  Mary  by  Jesus — "  For  my  burying  " — Interview  of  the  Traitor  with  the  Priests  -      452 


CONTENTS.  XV. 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 

PALM    SUNDAY.  ^^^^ 

Excitement  of  Expectation— Three   Roads  to  Bethany— Bethphage— The  Ass'  Colt— A  humble  Tri- 

umph^Hosanna  ! — Turn  of  the  Road — The  Jerusalem  of  that  day — Jesus  weeps  over  the  City 

Terrible  Fulfillment  of  the  Woe — The  Two  Processions — Indignation  of  the  Pharisees — "Who  is 
this?" — Jesus  once  more  cleanses  the  Temple — Hosannas  of  the  Children — "Have  ye  never 
read?" — The  Greeks  who  desired  an  Interview — Abgarus  V — Discourse  of  Jesus — Voice  from 
Heaven — The  Day  closes  in  Sadness — Bivouac  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  .        -        .        .        .      463 

CHAPTER    L. 

MONDAY   IN    PASSION    WEEK — A   DAY   OF   PARABLES. 

Jesus  Hungers— The  Deceptive  Fig— Hopelessly  Barren— Criticisms  on   the  Miracle— Right  V'iew  of 

it — Deputation  of  the  Priests — "  Who  gave  thee  this   authority?" — Counter-question   of  Jesus 

The  Priests  reduced  to  Silence— Parable  of  the  Two  Sons— Parable  of  the  Rebellious  Husband- 
men— The  Rejected  Corner-stone — Parable  of  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son — Machinations  of 
the  Pharisees     ----------.......       .j, 

CHAPTER  U. 

THE   DAY   OF  TEMPTATIONS — THE   LAST   AND    GREATEST   DAY   OF   THE   PUBLIC   MINISTRY 
OF   JESUS. 

The  Withered  Fig-tree— Power  of  Faith— Plot  of  the  Herodians— Its  Dangerous  Character— The 
Tribute  Money— Divine  and  Ready  Wisdom  of  the  Reply  of  Jesus— Attempt  of  the  Sadducees— 
A  poor  Question  of  Casuistry — The  Sevenfold  Widow— "  As  the  Angels  of  God" — "The  God  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob" — Implicit  Teaching  of  Immorality     ---..-.      4S2 

CHAPTER    LII. 

THE   GRE.AT   DENUNCIATION. 

"  Master,  thou  hast  well  said  " — "Which  is  the  great  commandment  ?"— Answer  of  the  Rabbis 

Answer  of  Jesus — "  Not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven  " — Question  of  Jesus  to  the  Scribes- 
David's  Son  and  David's  Lord— Their  Failure  to  Answer— The  Final  Rupture — "Woe  unto  you. 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  ! "— The  Voice  which  broke  in  Tears— "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusal 
lem!" — The  Denunciation  deserved — The  Denunciation  fulfilled '     .        .       .go 

CHAPTER  LIII. 

FAREWELL  TO   THE  TEMPLE. 

A  happier  Incident— The  poor  Widow— True  Almsgiving— Splendor  of  the  Temple— "  Not  one  stone 
upon  another"— Jesus  on  the  Mount  of  Olives— "  When  shall  these  things  be?"— The  great 
Eschatological  Discourse — The  Two  Horizons— Difficulties  of  the  Discourse,  and  mode  of  meet- 
ing them— What  must  come  before  the  Final  End— The   Immediate  Future— Warning  Signs 

Parable  of  the  Fig-tree— of  the  Ten  Virgins— of  the  Talents— After  Two  Days— Last  Evening 
Walk  to  Bethany '    -        -        -        -      498 

CHAPTER  LIV. 

THE   BEGINNING    OF   THE   END. 

Meeting  of  Conspirators  in  the  Palace  of  Caiaphas— Their  Discussions— Judas  demands  an  Inter- 
view—Thirty Pieces  of  Silver- Motives  of  Judas—"  Satan  entered  into  Judas  "—The  Wednesday 
passed  in  Retirement — Last  Sleep  of  Jesus  on  Earth 507 

CHAPTER    LV. 

THE     LAST     SUPPER. 

"  Green  Thursday  "—Preparations  for  the  Meal— The  Upper  Room— Dispute   about    Precedence 

Jesus  washes  the  Disciples'  Feet— Peter's  Surprise  and  Submission — "  Ye  are  clean,  but  not  all  " 
—Teaching  about  Humility— Troubled  in  Spirit—"  One  of  you  shall  betray  me  "— "  Lord,  is  it 
I?"— Peter  makes  a  Sign  to  John— Giving  of  the  Sop—"  Rabbi,  is  it  I  ?"— "  He  went  out,  and  it 
was  night  " — Revived  Joy  of  the  Feast — Institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper      -        .        -      '  -        .       513 

CHAPTER   LVI. 

THE     LAST     DISCOURSE. 

"  Now  is  the  Son  of  Man  glorified  "— "  Little  Children  "—The  New  Commandment—"  Lord,  whither 
goest  Thou  ?"— Warning  to  Peter—"  Lord,  here  are  two  swords  "—Consolations—"  How  can  we 
know  the  way  ?"—"  Lord,  show  us  the  Father  "-Difficulty  of  Judas  Lebbsus- Last  Words  be- 
fore Starting— The  True  Vine— Plain  Teachings— Gratitude  of  the  Disciples— Fresh  Warnings  to 
them— The  High-Priestly  Prayer 524 

15 


xvi.  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   LVII. 

OETHSEMANE — THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.  ,AC« 

Walk  through  the  Moonlight  to  Gethsemane — Last  Warning  to  Peter — Gethsemane — Scene  of  Agony — 
Desire  lor  Solitude  and  yet  for  Sympathy^The  First  Struggle  with  Agony  of  Soul — Its  Intensity — 
The  Bloody  Sweat — Not  due  to  Dread  of  Death — "Simon,  sleepcst  thou?" — The  Second  Agony 
— The  Disciples  Sleeping — The  Third  Agony  and  Final  Victory — "  Sleep  on  now,  and  take  your 
rest" — Torches  in  the  Moonlight — Steps  taken  by  Judas — "Comrade" — The  Traitor's  Kiss — 
Jesus  advances — "  Whom  seek  ye  ?" — "  I  am  He  " — Terror  of  the  Band — Historical  Parallels — 
Jesus  arrested — Peter's  Blow — "  Suffer  ye  thus  far  " — The  Young  Man  in  the  Linen  Sheet — Bound 
and  Led  away 532 

CHAPTER    LVIII. 

JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AND  THE  SAXHEDRIN. 
Asserted  Discrepancies — Sixfold  Trial — "  To  Annas  first" — Hanan,  the  High  Priest  de  jurt — His  Char- 
acter— His  Responsibility  for  the  Result — Degradation  of  the  then  Sanhedrin — Pharisees  and 
Sadducees — GreaterCruelty  of  the  Latter — The  Sadducees,  the  Priestly  Party — Cause  of  their  Rage 
and  Hatred — "The  Viper  Brood" — Jesus  repudiates  the  Examination  of  Hanan — "  Answer- 
est  Thou  the  High  Priest  so?" — Noble  Patience — The  Second  Phase  of  the  Trial— In  the  Palace 
of  Caiaphas — Committees  of  the  Sanhedrin — "Sought  false  witness  " — Total  Failure  of  the  Wit- 
nesses— "  Destroy  this  Temple  "^Silence  of  Jesus — Despair  of  Caiaphas — His  violent  Adjuration 
—Reply  of  Jesus — "Blasphemy" — "  Ish  inavelh" 545 

CHAPTER    LIX. 

THE   INTERVAL   BETWEEN   THE   TRIAU. 

The  First  Derision — The  Outer  Court — John  procures  Admission  for  Peter — The  First  Denial — The 
Second  Denial — The  Galilean  Accent — The  Third  Denial — The  Look  of  Jesus — The  Repentance 
of  Peter — Brutal  Insults  of  the  Menials^The  Dawn — iii.  The  Meeting  of  the  Sanhedrin — Their 
Divisions — Third  Phase  of  the  Trial — A  Contrast  of  Two  Scenes  before  the  Sanhedrin — Jesus 
breaks  His  Silence — The  Condemnation — The  Second  Derision — The  Fate  of  Jesus   .        .        -        556 

CHAPTER  LX. 

JESUS   BEFORE   I'lLATE. 

"  Suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate" — What  is  known  of  Pilate — First  Outbreak  of  the  Jews  against  him 
on  his  Arrival — The  Aqueduct  and  the  Corban — The  gilt  Votive  Shields — The  Massacre  of  Gali- 
leans— The  Massacre  of  Samaritans — The  Palace  of  Herod — Jesus  in  the  Palace — Led  before 
Pilate — Pilate  comes  out  to  the  Jews — i.  His  Roman  Contemptuousness — Determines  to  try  the 
Case — Vagueness  of  the  Accusations — "  Art  Thou  the  King  of  the  Jews  ?" — "  What  is  truth  ?" — 
First  Acquittal — 2.  Fierceness  of  the  Jews — Jesus  sent  to  Herod  Antipas — Cruel  Frivolity  of 
Herod — Second  Acquittal — 3.  Last  Phase  of  the  Trial — Temporizing  of  Pilate — Dream  of  his 
Wife — Cowardly  Concession — Jesus  or  Bar-Abbas? — "Crucify  Him" — The  Scourging — Third 
Derision — The  Crown  of  Thorns — "  Behold  the  Man  !" — Last  Efforts  of  Pilate  to  save  Him — 
Last  Warning  to  Pilate — "  The  Son  of  God  " — "  Behold  your  King  " — Pilate  terrified  at  the  Name 
of  Casar — He  gives  way — He  washes  his  Hands — "  His  blood  be  on  us,  and  on  our  children  !" — 
Fulfillment  of  the  Imprecation 565 

CHAPTER   LXI. 

THE     CRUCIFIXION. 

"/,  miles,  expedi  crucem  " — Two  Malefactors — The  Cross — Procession  to  Golgotha — Simon  of  Cyrene — 
The  Daughters  of  Jerusalem — The  Green  and  the  Dry  Tree — Site  of  Golgotha — The  Medicated 
Draught — The  Method  of  Crucifixion — "Father,  forgive  them" — Agony  of  Crucifixion — The 
Title  on  the  Cross — Rage  of  the  Jews — The  Soldiers — Parting  the  Garments— Insults  of  the  By- 
standers—The  Robber — Silence  of  the  Sufferer — The  Penitent  Robber — "To-day  shalt  thou  be 
with  me  in  Paradise  " — The  Women  from  Galilee — "Woman,  behold  thy  son  " — The  Noonday 
Darkness — "  Eli,  Eli,  lama  sabachthani  ?  " — "  I  thirst  " — Vinegar  to. Drink — "  Into  Thy  hands  " — 
"  It  is  finished  "—The  Centurion— The  Multitude— What  the  Cross  of  Christ  has  done— The 
Crurifragium — Water  and  Blood 584 

CHAPTER   LXII. 

THE     RESURRECTION. 

Utter  apparent  Weakness  of  Christianity  at  the  Death  of  Christ — Source  of  its  subsequent  Strength — 
Joseph  of  Arimathaea — Nicodemus — The  Garden  and  the  Sepulcher — The  Women  mark  the 
Spot — Request  of  the  Sanhedrin  that  the  Tomb  might  be  guarded — The  Dawn  of  Easter  Day — 
The  Women  at  the  Sepulcher — The  Empty  Tomb — Peter  and  John — i.  First  Appearance  to  Mary 
of  Magdala — 2.  Appearance  to  the  Women — Story  Invented  by  the  Jews — 3.  Appearance  to  Peter 
— 4.  The  Disciples  at  Emmaus — 5.  The  assembled  Apostles — 6.  The  Apostles  and  Thomas — 7.  At 
the  Sea  of  Galilee — Jesus  and  Peter — "  Feed  my  lambs  " — "What  shall  this  man  do?" — 8.  The 
Five  Hundred  on  the   Mountain — 9.  Appearance  to  James — 10.  The  Ascension — "At  the  right 

hand  of  God,  the  Father  Almighty  " 604 

16 


19  Sjcagogue  oftlie  Portugu 

20  Mosque. 

ir.— IHS  XOHlilllEDAIi  QCABTBB. 

21  Kh&D  and  Bazaar. 

22  Mineral  Bath 

83  Convent  and  Schools 

84  Institute  for  Blind  DeirtahM 
26  Hospital  of  St    Helena 

26  Reputed  site  of  the  House  of  the  Klch  Man 

27  Reputed  site  of  the  House  of  St.  Varonica 

28  Residence  of  the  Turkish  Pasha 

29  Arch  of  the  "Kcce  Horn..  " 


ttie  U'.'Iy  Staircase. 


3^J  Place  Oi  thp  "  t 

31  Pilate's  House. 

32  Place  of  Flagellation. 

33  Bnins  of  a  Church.    House  of  Slraon  the  PharlaAe 

34  Chnrch  of  8t.  Anna.  ruari^e. 
86  House  of  Herod.     Demsh'a  Mosqqe. 


V.-THE  MOOES'  QCARTEB. 


ft  Annenian  Convent    Hoose  ot  Oalaiiliaft 

b  American  Burial  Ground. 

0  David's  Tomb 

d  PlaceofWaiin^ofthe  Jewii 


lusl  vfiMn  Zini^t  ^att  i 


'tch*d  abodes  ftftf^r 


> 


^ 


^ 


-^ 


ngituie  Eft3t  fcca 


w^- 


nia-Aiieas  -         -S^ 


V 


^NAPH-pAXJ 


MO/ i 


«,,    M  WBah^iddB^  ,&»„/'  i*v«^   kA        tJwK.  ilmi.iJs.,  r    4^,'l»^••'^^^^Cy^I>^^>^^\l^\_ 


itnkeibireh} 


k.el  Keraijbr     I  W 


BaTiabo 


Toll  iStluS 


SakiU 


^A      Semiuf 


-//^' 


y--^-<- 


m 


•'SR-^     Sural 


Kfel 


r2Hajar_^^  V  Suk      '      '        -^ 


^,rfrfoharf=r--r*Bel!iJrE"^a?*'' 


Bet  hany— ;J^5^ 
IjiiarSaba' 


aetfjo^ 


'(SVKuUt  Zerka 


A  NEW  MAP  OP 

,   PALESTINE 

\  OK  THE 

HOLY  LAND 

Scatuu  Miles 


I  i 


Uruhr  TurkUh  ruU,  I^xUitirt  u  compritd  tn  (A« 
Two  grtat  (htrtmtntnt*  ofDamafua.  Eattofth* 
Jordan  and  L^nttum.  and  Beirut t>r  aidon  on  th4 
ffeH:  which  art  again  divUvi  ifUo  PaaHalic*. 


MODERN  JEHUSAl-EM. 
l.-THJB  CHBI8X1AA  aCABTIft. 
1  Oollatb'i  Castle. 

5  IaUd  ConTeDt. 

8  Chnrcb  of  Holy  Sepulchre. 
4  Greek  CocTent 

6  Coptic  Oonvent. 

6  Rains  of  St.  John's  HoBpital. 

7  Greek  Church.     St.  John's. 

8  Besidence  of  the  Christian  Bishop. 

9  Church  of  the  Greek  Schismatics. 
10  Tower  of  Hippicus      David's  Tower. 

U  Supposed  Site  of  the  Tover  ..f  Phaaaeli* 
r.3  The  PruuUn  ConBulai«> 


tl.-THE  ASMEMAN  UdARTEB. 


The  onljj  huildinp  in    Jerusalem  tdUflA 
presents  any  appearance  q/  con^foH, 

16  Knnnery  of  St.  George. 

17  BarrackB. 

III.-THE  JEWS   QUARTEB. 

T/ie  most  wrc'ched  in  the  city. 
\%  SynacoEUf^  of  th^  SbepartUm 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY; 


STORY  OF  THE  SAVIOUR. 


CHAPTER    I. 


THE    NATIVITY. 


"  He  was  made  human  that  we  might  be  made  divine." — Athanasiits. 

f  _ 

NE   mile  from   Bethlehem  is  a  little  plain,  in  \/hioh, 
under  a   grove   of   olives,    stands   the    bare   and 
neglected    chapel    known    by  the   name   of   "the 
Angel  to  the  Shepherds."'     It  is  built  over  the 
traditional  site  of  the  fields  where,  in  the  beau- 
tiful language  of  St.  Luke  —  more  exquisite  than 
any  idyll  to  Christian   ears  —  "there  were  shep- 
herds keeping  watch   over   their   flock   by  night, 
when,    lo,    the    angel    of   the    Lord    came    upon 
them,  and   the  glory  of  the  Lord°  shone  round 
about    them,"    and    to    their    happy    ears    were 
uttered   the   good   tidings  of   great   joy,   that  unto  them  was 
born   that  day    in    the    city    of    David  a  Saviour,    which  was 
Christ  the  Lord. 

The  associations  of  our  Lord's  nativity  were  all  of  the 
humblest  character,  and  the  very  scenery  of  His  birthplace  was  connected 
with   memories  of  poverty  and   toil.      On   that  night,  indeed,  it  seemed  as 

1  "Angels  and  Shepherds."  Near  this  spot  once  stood  a  tower  called  Migdal  Eder,  or  "Tower  of 
the  Flock"  (Gen.  xxxv.  21).  The  present  rude  chapel  is,  perhaps,  *  mere  fragment  of  a  church  built 
over  the  spot  by  Helena.  The  prophet  Micah  (iv.  8;  v.  2)  had  looked  to  Migdal  Eder  with  Mes- 
sianic hopes;  and  St.  Jerome.,  writing  with  views  of  prophecy  which  were  more  current  in  the  ancient 
than  in  the  modern  Church,  ventures  to  say  "  that  by  its  very  name  it  fore-signified  by  a  sor:  of 
prophecy  the  shepherds  at  the  birth  of  the  Lord." 

2  By  "glory  of  the  Lord"  (Luke  ii.  9)  is  probably  meant  the  Shechinah  or  cloud  of  brightness 
which  symbolized  the  Divine  presence. 


34  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

though  the  heavens  must  burst  to  disclose  their  radiant  minstrelsies ;  and 
the  stars,  and  the  feeding  sheep,  and  the  "  light  and  sound  in  the  dark- 
ness and  stillness,"  and  the  rapture  of  faithful  hearts,  combine  to  furnish 
us  with  a  picture  painted  in  the  colors  of  heaven.  But  in  the  brief 
and  thrilling  verses  of  the  Evangelist  we  are  not  told  that  those  angel 
songs  were  heard  by  any  except  the  wakeful  shepherds  of  an  obscure 
village ; — and  those  shepherds,  amid  the  chill  dews  of  a  winter  night, 
were  guarding  their  flocks  from  the  wolf  and  the  robber,  in  fields  where 
Ruth,  their  Saviour's  ancestress,  had  gleaned,  sick  at  heart,  amid  the  alien 
corn,  and  David,  the  despised  and  youngest  son  of  a  numerous  family, 
had  followed  the  ewes  great  with  young." 

"  And  suddenly,"  adds  the  sole  Evangelist  who  has  narrated  the 
circumstances  of  that  memorable  night  in  which  Jesus  was  born,  amid 
the  indifference  of  a  world  unconscious  of  its  Deliverer,  "  there  was  with 
the  angel  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host,  praising  God,  and  saying. 
Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  among  men  of  good  will." 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  Christian  piety  would  have  marked 
the  spot  by  splendid  memorials,  and  enshrined  the  rude  grotto  of  the 
shepherds  in  the  marbles  and  mosaics  of  some  stately  church.  But,  in- 
stead of  this,  the  Chapel  of  the  Herald  Angel  is  a  mere  rude  crypt ; 
and  as  the  traveler  descends  down  the  broken  steps,  which  lead  from 
the  olive-grove  into  its  dim  recess,  he  can  hardly  persuade  himself  that 
he  is  in  a  consecrated  place.  Yet  a  half-unconscious  sense  of  fitness  has, 
perhaps,  contributed  to  this  apparent  neglect.  The  poverty  of  the  chapel 
harmonizes  well  with  the  humble  toil  of  those  whose  radiant  vision  it  is 
intended  to  commemorate. 

"  Come  now  !  let  us  go  into  Bethlehem, =  and  see  this  thing  which  has 
come  to  pass,  which  the  Lord  made  known  to  us,"  said  the  shepherds, 
when  those  angel  songs  had  ceased  to  break  the  starry  silence.  Their 
way  would  lead  them  up  the  terraced  hill,  and  through  the  moonlit  gar- 
dens of  Bethlehem,  until  they  reached  the  summit  of  the  gray  ridge  on 
which  the  little  town  is  built.  On  that  summit  stood  the  village  inn. 
The  khan  (or  caravansary)  of  a  Syrian  village,  at  that  day,  was  probably 
identical,  in  its  appearance  and  accommodation,  with  those  which  still 
exist   in    modern    Palestine.     A    khan    is    a    low    structure,  built  of   rough 

1  Ps.  Ixxviii.    71. 

2  Luke  ii.  15.     I  must  remark  at  the  outset   that   in  most   of   my  quotations   from    the  Gospels  I 
do  not  slavishly  follow  the  English  Version,  but  translate  from  the  original   Greek. 


THE  NATIVITY.  35 

Stones,  and  generally  only  a  single  story  in  height.  It  consists  for  the 
most  part  of  a  square  inclosure,  in  which  the  cattle  can  be  tied  up  in 
safety  for  the  night,  and  an  arched  recess  for  the  accommodation  of  trav- 
elers. The  leewan,  or  paved  floor  of  the  recess,  is  raised  a  foot  or  two 
above  the  level  of  the  court-yard.  A  large  khan — such,  for  instance,  as 
that  of  which  the  ruins  may  still  be  seen  at  Khan  Minyeh,  on  the  shore 
of  the  Sea  of  Galilee — might  contain  a  series  of  such  recesses,  which  are, 
in  fact,  low  small  rooms  with  no  front  wall  to  them.  They  are,  of  course, 
perfectly  public ;  everything  that  takes  place  in  them  is  visible  to  every 
person  in  the  khan.  They  are  also  totally  devoid  of  even  the  most  or- 
dinary furniture.  The  traveler  may  bring  his  own  carpet  if  he  likes,  may 
sit  cross-legged  upon  it  for  his  meals,  and  may  lie  upon  it  at  night.'  As 
a  rule,  too,  he  must  bring  his  own  food,  attend  to  his  own  cattle,  and 
draw  his  own  water  from  the  neighboring  spring.  He  would  neither  ex- 
pect nor  require  attendance,  and  would  pay  only  the  merest  trifle  for  the 
advantage  of  shelter,  safety,  and  a  floor  on  which  to  lie.  But  if  he 
chanced  to  arrive  late,  and  the  leewans  were  all  occupied  by  earlier 
guests,  he  would  have  no  choice  but  to  be  content  with  such  accommo- 
dation as  he  could  find  in  the  court-yard  below,  and  secure  for  himself 
and  his  family  such  small  amount  of  cleanliness  and  decency  as  are 
compatible  with  an  unoccupied  corner  on  the  filthy  area,  which  must  be 
shared  with  horses,  mules,  and  camels.  The  litter,  the  closeness,  the 
unpleasant  smell  of  the  crowded  animals,  the  unwelcome  intrusion  of  the 
pariah  dogs,  the  necessary  society  of  the  very  lowest  hangers-on  of  the 
caravansary,  are  adjuncts  to  such  a  position  which  can  only  be  realized 
by  any  traveler  in  the  East  who  happens  to  have  been  placed  in  simi- 
lar circumstances. 

In  Palestine  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the  entire  khan,  or  at 
any  rate  the  portion  of  it  in  which  the  animals  are  housed,  is  one  of 
those  innumerable  caves  which  abound  in  the  limestone  rocks  of  its 
central  hills.  Such  seems  to  have  been  the  case  at  the  little  town  of 
Bethlehem-Ephratah,  in  the  land  of  Judah.  Justin  Martyr  the  Apolo- 
gist, who,  from  his  birth  at  Shechem,  was  familiar  with  Palestine,  and 
who   lived   less    than    a    century  after   the  time  of   our   Lord,"  places    the 

1  "It  is  common  to  find  two  sides  of  the  one  room  where  the  native  farmer  resides  with  his 
cattle,  and  the  remainder  elevated  about  two  feet  higher  for  the  accommodation  of  the  family  "  (Thomson, 
LoTtd  and  Book,  II.,  ch.   xx.xiii.). 

2  Justin  Martyr  was  born  at  Flavia  Neapolis,  A.D.  103,  and  died  A.D.  166.  The  date  of  his  First 
Apology  was  about  A.D.  138. 


36  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

scene  of  the  nativity  in  a  cave.  This  is,  indeed,  the  ancient  and  con- 
stant tradition  both  of  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Churches,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  few  to  which,  though  unrecorded  in  the  Gospel  history,  we 
may  attach  a  reasonable  probability.  Over  this  cave  has  risen  the 
Church  and  Convent  of  the  Nativity,  and  it  was  in  a  cave  close  beside 
it  that  one  of  the  most  learned,  eloquent,  and  holy  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Church — that  great  St.  Jerome,  to  whom  we  owe  the  received  Latin 
translation  of  the  Bible — spent  thirty  of  his  declining  years  in  study, 
and  fast,  and  prayer." 

From  their  northern  home  at  Nazareth,  in  the  mountains  of  Za- 
bulon,  Joseph,  the  village  carpenter,  had  made  his  way  along  the  wintry 
roads  with  Mary  his  espoused  wife,  being  great  with  child.^  Fallen  as 
were  their  fortunes,  they  were  both  of  the  house  and  lineage  of  David, 
and  they  were  traversing  a  journey  of  eighty  miles  to  the  village  which 
had  been  the  home  of  their  great  ancestor  while  he  was  still  a  ruddy 
shepherd  lad,  tending  his  flock  upon  the  lonely  hills.  The  object  of 
that  toilsome  journey,  which  could  not  but  be  disagreeable  to  the 
settled  habits  of  Oriental  life,  was  to  enroll  their  names  as  members  of 
the  house  of  David  in  a  census  which  had  been  ordered  by  the  Em- 
peror Augustus.  In  the  political  condition  of  the  Roman  Empire,  of 
which  Judea  then  formed  a  part,  a  single  whisper  of  the  Emperor  was 
sufificiently  powerful  to  secure  the  execution  of  his  mandates  in  the  re- 
motest corners  of  the  civilized  world.  Great  as  are  the  historic  difficul- 
ties in  which  this  census  is  involved,  there  seem  to  be  good  independent 
grounds  for  believing  that  it  may  have  been  originally  ordered 
by     Sentius      Saturninus,^     that      it     was     bcgim     by      Publius     Sulpicius 

1  He  settled  in  Bethlehem  .K.V).  3S6,  and  died  A.D.  420.  His  allusions  to  the  sacredness  of  the  spot 
are  very  touching,  and  the  most  splendid  offers  of  preferment  were  insufficient  to  tempt  him  away  from 
that  holy  ground. 

2  It  appears  to  be  uncertain  whether  the  journey  of  Mary  with  her  husband  was  obligatory  or 
voluntary.  But,  apart  from  any  legal  necessity,  it  may  easily  be  imagined  that  at  such  a  moment  Mary 
would  desire  not  to  be  left  alone.  The  cruel  suspicion  of  which  she  had  been  the  subject,  and  which 
had  almost  led  to  the  breaking  off  of  her  betrothal  (Matt.  i.  19),  would  make  her  cling  all  the  more  to  the 
protection  of  her  husband. 

3  It  has  been  held  impossible  that  there  should  have  been  a  census  in  the  kingdom  of  an  independ- 
ent prince  ;  yet  the  case  of  the  Clitae  seems  to  be  closely  parallel.  That  the  enrollment  should  be  conducted 
m  the  Jewish  fashion  at  the  place  of  family  origin,  and  not  in  the  Roman  fashion  at  the  place  of  resi- 
dence, may  have  been  a  very  natural  concession  to  the  necessities  of  Herod's  position.  It  may  be  per- 
fectly true  that  this  plan  would  give  more  trouble  ;  but,  in  spite  of  this,  it  was  far  less  likely  to  cause 
offense.  Yet  although  the  whole  proceeding  was  probably  due  to  a  mere  desire  on  the  part  of  Augustus 
«o  make  a  breziarium  imperii,  or  Domesday  Book,  which  should  include  the  regna  as  well  as  the  provinces. 
It  is  very  doubtful  whether  it  actually  did  not  cause  disturbances  at  this  very  time  (Jos.  Antt.  xvii.  2,  §  2),  as 
«e  know  that  it  did  ten  years  later.      How  deeply  the  disgrace  of  a  heathen  census  was  felt  is  shown   by 


THE  NATIVITY.  37 

Quirinus,"  when  he  was  for  the  first  time  legate  of  Syria,  and  that  it  was 
completed  during  his  second  term  of  office.  In  deference  to  Jewish  prejudices, 
any  infringement  of  which  was  the  certain  signal  for  violent  tumults  and 
insurrection,  it  was  not  carried  out  in  the  ordinary  Roman  manner,  at 
each  person's  place  of  residence,  but  according  to  Jewish  custom,  at  the 
town  to  which  their  family  originally  belonged.  The  Jews  still  clung  to 
their  genealogies  and  to  the  memory  of  long-extinct  tribal  relations;  and 
though  the  journey  was  a  weary  and  distasteful  one,  the  mind  of  Joseph 
may  well  have  been  consoled  by  the  remembrance  of  that  heroic  descent 
which  would  now  be  authoritatively  recognized,  and  by  the  glow  of 
those  Messianic  hopes  to  which  the  marvelous  circumstances  of  which 
he  was  almost  the  sole  depositary  would  give  a  tenfold  intensity.^ 

Traveling    in    the    East    is    a  very  slow  and  leisurely   affair,  and  was 

the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  Hab.  iii.  17,  where  for  "  The  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  folds,  and  there  shall 
be  no  herd  in  the  stalls,"  he  has,  "The  Romans  shall  be  rooted  out ;  they  shall  collect  no  more  tribute 
from  Jerusalem." 

1  Cyrenius  was  a  man  of  low  extraction,  at  once  ambitious  and  avaricious,  but  faithful  to  Augustus. 
No  less  than  three  censuses  of  Roman  citizens  are  mentioned  in  the  Monumentum  Ancyranum  ;  and 
Strabo  (under  Tiberius)  speaks  of  them  as  common.  Zumpt  has,  with  incredible  industry  and  research, 
all  but  established  in  this  matter  the  accuracy  of  St.  Luke,  by  proving  the  extreme probabilily  that  Quirinus 
was  twici  governor  of  Syria— viz.,  750 — 753  A.U.C.,  and  again  760 — 765.  It  was  during  the  former  period 
that  he  completed  the  first  census  which  had  been  commenced  by  Varus.  The  argument  mainly  turns  on 
the  fact  that  in  A.U.C.  742,  Quirinus  was  consul  and  afterwards  (not  before  A.U.C.  747)  proconsul  of 
Africa  ;  yet  some  time  between  this  year  and  A.U.C.  753 (in  which  year  he  was  appointed  rector  to  C.  Caesar, 
the  grandson  of  Augustus)  he  conquered  the  Homonadenses  in  Cilicia.  He  must  therefore  have  been  at 
this  time  proprietor  of  the  imperial  province  of  Syria,  to  which  Cilicia  belonged.  The  other  provinces 
near  Cilicia  (Asia,  Bithynia,  Pontus,  Galatia)  were  senatorial,  i.e.,  proconsular,  and  as  a  man  could  not  be 
proconsul  tvi\ce ,  Quirinus  could  not  have  been  governor  in  any  of  these.  It  is  not  possible  here  to  give  the 
ingenious  and  elaborate  arguments  by  which  Zumpt  shows  that  the  Homonadenses  must  at  this  time  have 
been  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Governor  of  Syria.  Further  than  this,  we  know  that  P.  Q.  Varus  was 
propraetor  of  Syria  between  B.C.  6  and  B.C.  4  (A.U.C.  748 — 750),  and  it  is  extremely  likely  that  Varus 
may  have  been  displaced  in  favor  of  Quirinus  in  the  latter  year,  because  the  close  friendship  of  the  former 
with  Archelaus,  who  resembled  him  in  character,  might  have  done  mischief.  It  may  therefore  be 
regarded  as  all  but  certain,  on  independent  grounds,  that  Quirinus  was  propraetor  of  Syria  between  B.C.  4 
and  B.C.  I.  And  if  such  was  the  case,  instead  of  having  been  guilty  of  a  flagrant  historical  error  by  ante- 
dating, by  ten  years,  the  propraetorship  of  Quirinus  in  Syria,  St.  Luke  has  preserved  for  us  the  historical 
fact  of  his  having  been  twice  propraetor,  a  fact  which  we  should  have  been  unable  to  learn  from  Josephus 
or  Dio  Cassius,  whose  histories  are  here  imperfect.  For  the  full  arguments  on  this  point  the  reader  must, 
however,  consult  the  exhaustive  treatise  of  A.  W.  Zumpt.  The  appeals  of  Tertullian  to  census-records  of 
Saturninus,  and  of  Justin  Martyr  to  the  tables  of  Quirinus,  as  proving  the  genealogy  of  our  Lord,  are  (so 
far  as  we  can  attach  any  importance  to  them)  an  additional  confirmation  of  these  conclusions,  which  are 
not  overthrown  by  Mommsen  and  Strauss.  Quirinus,  not  Quirinius,  is  probably  the  true  form  of  the 
name  (Orelli  ad  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  30).  For  further  discussion  of  the  question  see  Wieseler,  Synops.  0/ the  Four 
Gospels,  E.  Tr. ,  pp.  65 — 106.  I  may,  however,  observe  in  passing  that,  although  no  error  has  been  proved, 
and,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  the  reference  is  perfectly  accurate,  yet  I  hold  no 
theory  of  inspiration  which  would  prevent  me  from  frankly  admitting,  in  such  matters  as  these,  any  mis- 
take or  inaccuracy  which  could  be  shown  really  to  exist. 

2  That  Joseph  alone  knew  these  facts  appears  from  Matt.  i.  19,  where  the  best  reading  seems  to  be  not 
"make  her  an  example,"  but,  as  Eusebius  pointsout,  "  reveal  her  condition  to  the  world."   There  is  nothing 


38  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

likely  to  be  still  more  so  if,  as  is  probable,  the  country  was  at  that  time 
agitated  by  political  animosities.  Beeroth,  which  is  fifteen  miles  distant 
from  Bethlehem,"  or  possibly  even  Jerusalem,  which  is  only  six  miles  off, 
may  have  been  the  resting-place  of  Mary  and  Joseph  before  this  last 
stage  of  their  journey.  But  the  heavy  languor,  or  even  the  commencing 
pangs  of  travail,  must  necessarily  have  retarded  the  progress  of  the 
maiden-mother.  Others  who  were  traveling  on  the  same  errand,  would 
easily  have  passed  them  on  the  road,  and  when,  after  toiling  up  the 
steep  hill-side,  the  David's  well,  they  arrived  at  the  khan — probably  the 
one  which  had  been  known  for  centuries  as  the  House  of  Chimham,' 
and  if  so,  covering  perhaps  the  very  ground  on  which,  one  thousand 
years  before,  had  stood  the  hereditary  house  of  Boaz,  of  Jesse,  and  of 
David — every  leeivan  was  occupied.  The  enrollment  had  drawn  so  many 
strangers  to  the  little  town,  "that  there  was  no  room  for  them  in  the 
inn."  In  the  rude  limestone  grotto  attached  to  it  as  a  stable,  among  the 
hay    and    straw    spread  for  the  focfd  and    rest    of    the    cattle,    weary  with 

surprising  in  the  fact  that  the  descendant  of  a  royal  house  should  be  in  a  lowly  position.  Hillel,  the  great 
Rabbi,  though  he,  too,  was  a  descendant  of  David,  spent  a  great  part  of  his  life  in  the  deepest  poverty  as 
a  common  workman.  The  green  turban,  which  marks  a  descendant  of  Mahomet,  may  often  be  seen  in 
Egypt  and  Arabia  on  the  head  of  paupers  and  beggars.  Similar  facts  exist  quite  commonly  among  our- 
selves; and,  ages  before  this  time,  we  find  that  the  a.<i\M3\  grandson  of  the  great  Lawgiver  himself  (Judg. 
xviii.  30,  where  the  true  reading  is  "Moses,"  not  "  Manasseh  ")  was  an  obscure,  wandering,  semi-idola- 
trous Levite,  content  to  serve  an  irregular  ephod  for  a  double  suit  of  apparel  and  ten  shekels  {i.e.,  about 
thirty  shillings)  a  year  (Judg.  xvii.  10).  On  the  genealogies  given  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  see  the 
learned  and  admirable  article  by  the  Bishop  of  Bath  of  Wells  in  Smith's  Did.  of  the  Bible,  and  his  more 
elaborate  work  on  the  same  subject.  Here  I  need  only  add  that  remarkable  confirmations  of  the  descent 
of  Jesus  from  David  are  found  (i)  in  the  story  of  Domitian  and  the  Desposyni,  alluded  to  infr.  Chap.  IV.; 
and  (2)  in  a  statement  by  Ulla,  a  Rabbi,  of  the  third  century,  that  "  Jesus  was  treated  exceptionally  because 
cf  his  royal  extraction."  It  is  now  almost  certain  that  the  genealogies  in  both  Gospels  are  genealogies  of 
Joseph,  which,  if  we  may  rely  on  early  traditions  of  their  consanguinity,  involve  genealogies  of  Mary  also. 
The  Davidic  descent  of  Mary  is  implied  in  Acts  ii.  30;  xiii.  23;  Rom.  i.  3;  Luke  i.  32,  &c.  St.  Matthew 
gives  the  legal  descent  of  Joseph,  through  the  elder  and  regal  line,  as  heir  to  the  throne  of  David;  St.  Luke 
gives  the  natural  descent.  Thus  the  real  father  of  Salathiel  was  heir  of  the  house  of  Nathan,  but  the  child- 
less Jeconiah  (Jer.  xxii.  30)  was  the  last  lineal  representative  of  the  elder  kingly  line.  The  omission  of 
some  obscure  names  and  the  symmetrical  arrangement  into  tessera  decades  were  common  Jewish  customs. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  after  the  labors  of  Mill  (On  the  Mythical  Interpretation  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  147 
— 217)  and  Lord  A.  C.  Hervey  {On  the  Genealogies  of  our  Lord,  1853),  scarcely  a  single  serious  difficulty 
remains  in  reconciling  the  apparent  divergencies.  And  thus,  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  instances,  the 
very  discrepancies  which  appear  to  be  most  irreconcilable,  and  most  fatal  to  the  historic  accuracy  of  the 
four  Evangelists,  turn  out,  on  closer  and  more  patient  investigation,  to  be  fresh  proof  that  they  are  not 
only  entirely  independent,  but  also  entirely  trustworthy. 

1  St.  Matthew  calls  it  Bethlehem  of  Judea(ii.  i)  to  distinguish  it  from  Bethlehem  in  Zebulun  (Josh.  xix. 
15).     It  is  the  Ephrath  of  Gen.  xlviii.  7.     Cf.  Micah  v.  2. 

2  Or  rather  "hostel"  (Jer.  xli.  17;  2  Sam.  xix.  37,  38).  One  tradition  says  that  the  khan  was  on  the  ruins 
of  a  fortress  built  by  David  which  had  gradually  fallen  to  ruin.  The  suggestion  that  the  House  of  Chim- 
ham  was  the  khan  of  Bethlehem  is  made  by  Mr.  W.  Hepworth  Dixon  {Holy  Land,  I.,  ch.  xiii).  He  gives  a 
good  description  of  Syrian  khans. 


THE  NATIVITY.  39 

their  day's  journey,  far  from  home,  in  the  midst  of  strangers,  in  the  chilly 
winter  night — in  circumstances  so  devoid  of  all  earthly  comfort  or  splen- 
dor that  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  humbler  nativity — Christ  was 
born.' 

Distant  but  a  few  miles,  on  the  plateau  of  the  abrupt  and  singular 
hill  now  called  Jebel  Fureidis,  or  "  Little  Paradise  Mountain,"  towered 
the  palace-fortress  of  the  Great  Herod.  The  magnificent  houses  of  his 
friends  and  courtiers  crowded  around  its  base.  The  humble  wayfarers, 
as  they  passed  near  it,  might  have  heard  the  hired  and  voluptuous 
minstrelsy  with  which  its  feasts  were  celebrated,  or  the  shouting  of  the 
rough  mercenaries  whose  arms  enforced  obedience  to  its  despotic  lord. 
But  the  true  King  of  the  Jews — the  rightful  Lord  of  the  Universe — was 
not  to  be  found  in  palace  or  fortress.  They  who  wear  soft  clothing  are  in 
king's  houses.  The  cattle-stables  of  the  lowly  caravansary  were  a  more 
fitting  birthplace  for  Him  who  came  to  reveal  that  the  soul  of  the 
greatest  monarch  was  no  dearer  or  greater  in  God's  sight  than  the  soul 
of  his  meanest  slave;  for  Him  who  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head;  for 
Him  who,  from  His  cross  of  shame,  was  to  rule  the  world. 

Guided  by  the  lamp  which  usually  swings  from  the  center  of  a  rope 
hung  across  the  entrance  of  the  khan,  the  shepherds  made  their  way  to 
the  inn  of  Bethlehem,  and  found  Mary,  and  Joseph,  and  the  Babe  lying 
in  the  manger.  The  fancy  of  poet  and  painter  has  reveled  in  the 
imaginary  glories  of  the  scene.  They  have  sung  of  the  "bright  harnessed 
angels"  who  hovered  there,  and  of  the  stars  lingering  beyond  their  time 
to  shed  their  sweet  influences  upon  that  smiling  infancy.  They  have 
painted  the  radiation  of  light  from  His  manger-cradle,  illuminating  all  the 
place  till  the  bystanders  are  forced  to  shade  their  eyes  from  that  heavenly 
splendor."  But  all  this  is  wide  of  the  reality.  Such  glories  as  the  simple 
shepherds  saw  were  seen  only  by  the  eye  of  faith;  and  all  which  met  their 

1  That  "  it  was  the  winter  wild,"  at  the  end  of  B.C.  5  or  the  beginning  of  B.C.  4  of  our  Dionysian  era, 
is  all  but  certain;  but  neither  the  day  nor  the  month  can  be  fixed.  That  the  actual  place  of  Christ's  birth 
was  a  cave  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  very  ancient  tradition,  and  this  cave  used  to  be  shown  as  the  scene  of  the 
event  even  so  early  (A.D.  150)  as  the  time  of  Justin  Martyr.  There  is  therefore  nothing  improbable  in  the 
tradition  which  points  on  the  actual  cave  as  having  been  the  one  now  covered  by  the  Church  of  the  Nativity 
at  Bethlehem.  Hadrian  is  said  to  have  profaned  it  by  establishing  there  the  worship  of  Adonis.  It  is  fair, 
liowever,  to  add  that  the  tradition  of  the  cave  may  have  arisen  from  the  LXX.  rendering  of  Isa.  xxxiii.  16, 
just  as  the  subsequent  words  in  the  LXX.  ("bread  shall  be  given  to  him  ")  were  fancifully  referred  to 
Bethlehem,  "the  house  of  bread."  There  seems  to  be  no  proof  of  the  assertion  (mentioned  by  Stanley, 
Sin.  and  Pa!.,  p.  441),  that  the  Arabs,  when  they  plundered  the  church,  found  that  the  Grotto  of  the  Nativity 
was  an  ancient  sepulcher.  If  such  had  been  the  case,  is  it  likely  that  the  Empress  Helena  (A.D.  330) 
would  have  built  her  church  there  ? 

2  As  in  the  splendid  picture.  "  La  Notte,"  of  Correggia 


40  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

gaze  was  a  peasant  of  Galilee,  already  beyond  the  prime  of  life,  and  a 
younger  mother,  of  whom  they  could  not  know  that  she  was  wedded 
maid  and  virgin  wife,  with  an  infant  Child,  whom,  since  there  was  none 
to  help  her,  her  own  hands  had  wrapped  in  swaddling-clothes.  The  light 
lat  shined  in  the  darkness  was  no  physical,  but  a  spiritual  beam ;  the 
^'ayspring  from  on  high,  which  had  now  visited  mankind,  dawned  only 
'n  a  few  faithful  and  humble  hearts." 

And  the  Gospels,  always  truthful  and  bearing  on  every  page  that 
simplicity  which  is  the  stamp  of  honest  narrative,  indicate  this  fact  with- 
out comment.  There  is  in  them  nothing  of  the  exuberance  of  marvel, 
and  mystery,  and  miracle,  which  appear  alike  in  the  Jewish  imagination 
about  their  coming  Messiah,  and  in  the  Apocryphal  narratives  about  the 
Infant  Christ.  There  is  no  more  decisive  criterion  of  their  absolute 
credibility  as  simple  histories,  than  the  marked  and  violent  contrast  which 
they  offer  to  all  the  spurious  gospels  of  the  early  centuries,  and  all  the 
imaginative  legends  which  have  clustered  about  them.  Had  our  Gospels 
been  unauthentic,  they  too  must  inevitably  have  partaken  of  the  charac- 
teristics which  mark,  without  exception,  every  early  fiction  about  the 
Saviour's  life.  To  the  unilluminated  fancy  it  would  have  seemed  in- 
credible that  the  most  stupendous  event  in  the  world's  history  should 
have  taken  place  without  convulsions  and  catastrophes.  In  the  Gospel 
of  St.  James  there  is  a  really  striking  chapter,  describing  how,  at  the 
awful  moment  of  the  nativity,  the  pole  of  the  heaven  stood  motionless,  and 
the  birds  were  still,  and  there  were  workmen  lying  on  the  earth  with  their 
hands  in  a  vessel,  "and  those  who  handled  did  not  handle  it,  and  those 
who  took  did  not  lift,  and  those  who  presented  it  to  their  mouth  did 
not  present  it,  but  the  faces  of  all  were  looking  up ;  and  I  saw  the  sheep 
scattered  and  the  sheep  stood,  and.  the  shepherd  lifted  up  his  hand  to  strike, 
and  his  hand  remained  up ;  and  I  looked  at  the  stream  of  the  river,  and 
the  mouths  of  the  kids  were  down,  and  were  not  drinking ;  and  every- 
thing which  was  being  propelled  forward  was  intercepted  in  its  course." 
But  of  this  sudden  hush  and  pause  of  awe-struck  Nature,  of  the  parhe- 
lions  and  mysterious  splendors  which  blazed  in  many  places  of  the  world, 
of  the  painless  childbirth,  of  the  perpetual  virginity,  of  the  ox  and  the 
ass  kneeling  to  worship  Him  in  the  manger,  of  the  voice  with  which  im- 
mediately after  His    birth   He  told  His    mother  that  He  was    the  Son  of 

I  The  Apocrypha!  Gospels,  with  their  fondness  for  circumstantiality,  and  their  readiness  on  all  occasions 
to  invent  imaginary  names,  say  that  there  were  four  shepherds,  and  that  their  names  were  Misael,  Acheel, 
Cyriacus,  and  Stephanus.     The  little  village  of  Beit-Sahur  is  pointed  out  as  their  native  place. 


THE    111  11, V    FAMILY. 


THE  NATIVITY.  41 

God,  and  of  many  another  wonder  which  rooted  itself  in  the  earliest 
traditions,  there  is  no  trace  whatever  in  the  New  Testament.  The  in- 
.  ventions  of  man  differ  wholly  from  the  dealings  of  God.  In  his  designs 
there  is  no  haste,  .no  rest,  no  weariness,  no  discontinuity ;  all  things  are 
done  by  Him  in  the  majesty  of  silence,  and  they  are  seen  under  a  light 
that  shineth  quietly  in  the  darkness,  "showing  all  things  in  the  slow 
history  of  their  ripening."  "The  unfathomable  depths  of  the  Divine  coun- 
sels," it  has  been  said,  "were  moved;  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep 
were  broken  up ;  the  healing  of  the  nations  was  issuing  forth :  but 
nothing  was  seen  on  the  surface  of  human  society  but  this  slight  rippling 
of  the  water:  the  course  of  human  things  went  on  as  usual,  while  each 
was  taken  up  with  little  projects  of  his  own." 

How  long  the  Virgin  Mother  and  her  holy  Child  stayed  in  this 
cave,  or  cattle-inclosure,  we  cannot  tell,  but  probably  it  was  not  for  long. 
The  word  rendered  "manger"  in  Luke  ii.  7,  is  of  very  uncertain  mean- 
ing, nor  can  we  discover  more  about  it  than  that  it  means  a  place  where 
animals  were  fed.  It  is  probable  that  the  crowd  in  the  khan  would  not 
be  permanent,  and  common  humanity  would  have  dictated  an  early 
removal  of  the  mother  and  her  Child  to  some  more  appropriate  resting- 
place. 

The  magi,  as  we  see  from  St.  Matthew,  visited  Mary  in  "the 
house,"'  But  on  all  these  minor  incidents  the  Gospels  do  not  dwell. 
The  fullest  of  them  is  St.  Luke,  and  the  singular  sweetness  of  his 
narrative,  its  almost  idyllic  grace,  its  sweet  calm  tone  of  noble  reticence, 
seem  clearly  to  indicate  that  he  derived  it,  though  but  in  fragmentary 
notices,  from  the  lips  of  Mary  herself.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  imagine 
from  whom  else  it  could  have  come,  for  mothers  are  the  natural  histo- 
rians of  infant  years ;  but  it  is  interesting  to  find,  in  the  actual  style, 
that  "coloring  of  a  woman's  memory  and  a  woman's  view,"  which  we 
should  naturally  have  expected  in  confirmation  of  a  conjecture  so  obvious 
and  so  interesting. 

To  one  who  was  giving  the  reins  to  his  imagination,  the  minutest 
'  incidents  would  have  claimed  a  description  ;  to  Mary  they  would 
have  seemed  trivial  and  irrelevant.  Others  might  wonder,  but  in 
her  all  wonder  was  lost  in  the  one  overwhelming  revelation — the  one  absorb- 
ing consciousness.  Of  such  things  she  could  not  lightly  speak;  "she 
kept    all    these    things,    and    pondered    them    in    her    heart."  ^      The  very 

I   Matt.  ii.  II.  ,  2  Luke  ii.  19. 


42  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

depth  and  sacredness  of  that  reticence  is  the  natural  and  probable  explana- 
tion of  the  fact,  that  some  of  the  details  of  the  Saviour's  infancy  are 
fully  recorded  by  St    Luke  alone. 


CHAPTER    II. 


THE    PRESENTATION    IX    THE    TEMPLE. 

"  He  who  with  all  heaven's  heraldry  whilere 
Entered  the   world,   now  bleeds  to  give  us  ease. 

Alas  !    how  soon  our  sin 

Sore  doth  begin 
His  infancy  to  seize  !  " — Milton,    The  Circumcision. 


OUR  events  only  of  our  Lord's  infancy  are  nar- 
rated by  the  Gospels — namely,  the  Circumcision, 
the  Presentation  in  the  Temple,  the  Visit  of  the 
Magi,  and  the  Flight  into  Egypt.  Of  these  the 
first  two  occur  only  in  St.  Luke,  the  last  two 
only  in  St.  Matthew.  Yet  no  single  particular 
can  be  pointed  out  in  which  the  two  narra- 
tives are  necessarily  contradictory.  If,  on  other 
grounds,  we  have  ample  reason  to  accept  the 
evidence  of  the  Evangelists,  as  evidence  given 
by  witnesses  of  unimpeachable  honesty,  we  have 
every  right  to  believe  that,  to  whatever  cause  the  confessed 
fragmentariness  of  their  narratives  may  be  due,  those  nar- 
ratives may  fairly  be  regarded  as  supplementing  each  other. 
It  is  as  dishonest  to  assume  the  existence  of  irreconcilable 
discrepancies,  as  it  is  to  suggest  the  adoption  of  impossible  harmonies. 
The  accurate  and  detailed  sequence  of  biographical  narrative  from  the 
earliest  years  of  life  was  a  thi^ig  wholly  unknown  to  the  Jews,  and  alien 
alike  from  their  style  and  temperament.  Anecdotes  of  infancy,  incidents 
of  childhood,  indications  of  future  greatness  in  boyish  years,  are  a  very 
rare  phenomenon  in  ancient  literature.  It  is  only  since  the  dawn  of 
Christianity  that  childhood  has  been  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  romance. 
The  exact  order  of  the  events  which  occurred  before  the  return  to 
Nazareth  can  only  be  a  matter  of  uncertain  conjecture.  The  Circum- 
cision was  on  the  eighth  day  after  the  birth  (Luke  i.  59;  ii.  21);  the 
Purification  was  thirty-three  days  after  the  Circumcision'  (Lev.  xii.  4) ; 
the  visit  of    the  Magi  was  "when   Jesus  was   born  in    Bethlehem"  (Matt. 

I  Not  after  the  birth,  as  Caspar!  says. 


44  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

ii.  i);  and  the  Flight  into  Egypt  immediately  after  their  departure. 
The  supposition  that  the  return  from  Egypt  was  previous  to  the  Pres- 
entation in  the  Temple,  though  not  absolutely  impossible,  seems  most 
improbable.  To  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  such  a  postponement 
would  have  been  a  violation  (however  necessary)  of  the  Levitical  law," 
it  would  either  involve  the  supposition  that  the  Purification  was  long 
postponed,  which  seems  to  be  contradicted  by  the  twice-repeated  expres- 
sion of  St.  Luke  (ii.  22,  39) ;  or  it  supposes  that  forty  days  allowed 
sufficient  time  for  the  journey  of  the  wise  men  from  "  the  East,"  and 
for  the  flight  to,  and  return  from,  Egypt.  It  involves,  moreover,  the 
extreme  improbability  of  a  return  of  the  Holy  Family  to  Jerusalem — a 
town  but  six  miles  distant  from  Bethlehem— within  a  few  days  after  an 
event  so  frightful  as  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents.  Although  no  sup- 
position is  entirely  free  from  the  objections  which  necessarily  arise  out 
of  our  ignorance  of  the  circumstances,  it  seems  almost  certain  that  the 
Flight  into  Egypt,  and  the  circumstances  which  led  to  it,  did  not  occur 
till  after  the  Presentation.  For  forty  days,  therefore,  the  Holy  Family 
were  left  in  peace  and  obscurity,  in  a  spot  surrounded  by  so  many  scenes  of 
interest,  and  hallowed  by  so  many  traditions  of  their  family  and  race. 
Of  the  Circumcision  no  mention  is  made  by  the  Apocryphal  Gospels, 
except  an  amazingly  repulsive  one  in  the  Arabic  Gospel  of  the  Infancy." 
It  was  not  an  incident  which  would  be  likely  to  interest  those  whose 
object  it  was  to  intrude  their  own  dogmatic  fancies  into  the  sacred  story. 
But  to  the  Christian  it  has  its  own  solemn  meaning.  It  shows  that 
Christ  came  not  to  destroy  the  Law,  but  to  fulfill.  Thus  it  became  Him 
to  fulfill  all  righteousness.'  Thus  early  did  He  suffer  pain  for  our 
sakes,  to  teach  us  the  spiritual  circumcision— the  circumcision  of  the 
heart — the  circumcision  of  all  our  bodily  feenses.*  As  the  East  catches 
at  sunset  the  colors  of  the  West,  so  Bethlehem  is  a  prelude  to  Calvary, 
and  even  the  Infant's  cradle  is  tinged  with  a  crimson  reflection  from  the 

1  For  by  the  law  a  woman  was  obliged  to  stay  in  the  house  during  the  forty  days  before  the  purifica- 
tion (Lev.  xii.  i — S). 

2  It  was  doubtless  performed  by  Joseph,  and  the  presence  of  witnesses  was  necessary.  Special 
prayers  were  offered  on  the  occasion,  a  chair  was  placed  for  the  prophet  Elijah,  as  the  precursor  of  the 
Messiah,  and  a  feast  terminated  the  ceremony.  Lange  well  observes  the  contrast  between  the  slight 
notice  of  the  circumcision  of  Jesus,  and  the  great  festivities  with  which  that  of  St.  John  was  solemnized 
"  In  John  the  rite  of  circumcision  solemnized  its  last  glory." 

3  Matt.  iii.  15. 

4  See  the  somewhat  fanciful,  yet  beautiful,  remarks  of  St.  Bonaventura  in  his  Vita  ChrisH^  ch,  v.  ; 
"We  Christians  have  baptism,  a  rite  of  fuller  grace,  and  free  from  pain.  Nevertheless,  we  ought  to  prac- 
tice the  circumcision  of  the  heart." 


THE  PRESENTATION  IN  THE  TEMPLE.  45 

Redeemer's    cross.      It    was    on    this    day,    too,    that    Christ    first    publicly 
received    that  name'  of   Jesus,  which   the  command  of   the  angel  Gabriel 
had    already    announced.      "  Hoshea "    meant    salvation;    Joshua,   "whose 
salvation    is    Jehovah;"    Jesus    is    but    the    English    modification    of    the 
Greek   form  of   the  name.     At    this   time    it  was    a  name    extraordinarily 
common  among   the    Jews.      It  was    dear  to  them    as    having  been  borne 
by  the  great   Leader  who  had  conducted  them  into  victorious  possession 
of   the  Promised    Land,  and    by  the  Great  High  Priest  who  had    headed 
the  band  of  exiles  who  returned  from  Babylon ; '  but  henceforth — not  for 
Jews  only,  but    for   all    the  world — it    was    destined    to  acquire    a   signifi- 
cance   infinitely    more    sacred    as    the    mortal    designation   of    the    Son  of 
God.     The    Hebrew    "Messiah"    and    the    Greek    "Christ"    were    names 
which  represented   His  ofifice  as  the  Anointed  Prophet    Priest,  and  Kino-; 
but     "Jesus"    was     the     personal     name    which     He     bore    as    one    who 
"emptied  Himself  of  His  glory"  to  become  a  sinless  man  among  sinful  men. 
On    the    fortieth  day  after    the   nativity — until  which    time  she  could 
not   leave  the   house — the  Virgin  presented    herself   with    her    Babe  from 
their    Purification   in    the    Temple  at   Jerusalem.      "  Thus,  then,"  says    St. 
Bonaventura,   "do  they    bring   the    Lord    of   the    Temple  to  the    Temple 
of   the    Lord."     The    proper    offermg   on    such    occasions  was    a   yearllno- 
lamb  for  a  burnt-offering,  and  a  young  pigeon  or  a  turtle-dove  for  a  sin 
offering; 3   but  with  that  beautiful  tenderness,  which  is  so  marked  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  Mosaic  legislation,  those  who  were  too  poor  for  so  com- 
paratively  costly    an    offering,  were  allowed    to   bring    instead    two  turtle- 
doves or  two  young  pigeons."     With  this  humble  offering  Mary  presented 
herself  to  the  priest.     At  the  same  time  Jesus,  as  being  a  first-born  son, 
was    presented   to  God,  and    in    accordance  with    the  law,   was    redeemed 
from    the    necessity  of   Temple    service    by  the  ordinary  payment  of   five 
shekels    of   the   sanctuary    (Numb,  xviii.    15,    16),  amounting   in    value    to 
about  fifteen  shillings.     Of  the  purification  and  presentation  no  further  details 
are  given  to  us,  but  this  visit  to  the  Temple  was  rendered  memorable  by  a 
double  incident — the  recognition  of  the  Infant  Saviour  by  Simeon  and  Anna, 

1  Among  the  Greeks,  and  Romans  also,  the  naming  was  on  the  eighth  or  ninth  day  after  birth. 
Among  the  Jews  this  was  due  to  the  fact  mentioned  in  Gen.  xvii.  5,  15  (Abraham  and  Sarah). 

2  See  Ezra  ii.  2  ;  iii.  2  ;  Zech.  iii.  i,  &c.  For  other  bearers  of  the  name,  see  i  Chron.  xxiv.  it  ;  t  Sam. 
Vi.  14  ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  8  ;  Luke  iii.  29.  A  son  of  Saul  is  said  to  have  been  so  called  (Jos.  ,■?««.  vi.  6,  §  6). 
In  the  New  Testament  we  have  "Jesus  which  is  called  Justus"  (Col.  i  v.  11),  Bar-Jesus  (Acts  xiii.  6) ;  and 
probably /■j«j  Barabbas,  if  the  reading  be  right  in  Matt,  xxvii.  16.  No  less  than  twelve  people  of  the 
name  (besides  those  mentioned  in  Scripture)  are  alluded  to  in  Josephus  alone. 

3  Luke  ii.  22  ;  Lev.  xii.  i — S  ;  Numb.  xvii.  j6.  4  Lev.  xii.  6 8. 


46  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Of  Simeon  we  are  simply  told  that  he  was  a  just  and  devout 
Israelite  endowed  with  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  that  having  received 
divine  intimation  that  his  death  would  not  take  place  till  he  had  seen 
the  Messiah,'  he  entered  under  some  inspired  impulse  into  the  Temple, 
and  there,  recognizing  the  Holy  Child,  took  Him  in  his  arms,  and  burst 
into  that  glorious  song — the  "  Nunc  Dimittis  " — -which  for  eighteen  cen- 
turies has  been  so  dear  to  Christian  hearts.  The  prophecy  that  the 
Babe  should  be  " a  light  to  lighten  the  Gejitiles"  no  less  than  the 
strangeness  of  the  circumstances,  may  well  have  caused  astonishment  to 
His  parents,  from  whom  the  aged  prophet  did  not  conceal  their  own 
future  sorrows — warning  the  Virgin  Mother  especially,  both  of  the  deadly 
opposition  which  that  Divine  Child  was  destined  to  encounter,  and  of 
the  national  perils  which  should  agitate  the  days  to  come. 

Legend  has  been  busy  with  the  name  of  Simeon.  In  the  Arabic 
Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  he  recognizes  Jesus  because  he  sees  him  shining 
like  a  pillar  of  light  in  His  mother's  arms.  Nicephorus  tells  us  that,  in 
reading  the  Scriptures,  he  had  stumbled  at  the  verse,  "  Behold,  a  virgin 
shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  son"  (Isa.  vii.  14),  and  had  then  received  the 
intimation  that  he  should  not  die  till  he  had  seen  it  fulfilled.  All  attempts 
to  identify  him  with  other  Simeons  have  failed.  Had  he  been  a  High 
Priest,  or  President  of  the  Sanhedrin,  St.  Luke  would  not  have  introduced 
him  so  casually  as  "a  man  in  Jerusalem  whose  name  was  Simeon."  The 
statement  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Nativity  of  Mary  that  he  was  113  years 
old  is  wholly  arbitrary ;  as  is  the  conjecture  that  the  silence  of  the  Tal- 
mud about  him  Is  due  to  his  Christian  proclivities.  He  could  not  have 
been  Rabban  Simeon,  the  son  of  Hillel,  and  father  of  Gamaliel,  who 
would  not  at  this  time  have  been  so  old.  Still  less  could  he  have  been 
the  far  earlier  Simeon  the  Just,  who  was  believed  to  have  prophesied  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  who  was  the  last  survivor  of  the  great 
Sanhedrin.'  It  is  curious  that  we  should  be  told  nothing  respecting  him, 
while  of  Anna  the  prophetess  several  interesting  particulars  are  given, 
and  among  others  that  she  was  of  the  tribe  of  Asher — a  valuable  proof 
that  tribal  relations  still  lived  affectionately  in  the  memory  of  the  people.' 

1  The  expression,  "  waiting  for  the  consolation  of  Israel,"  resembles  what  St.  Mark  says  of  Joseph  of 
Ariinatbea,  '-who  also  waited  for  the  kingdom  of  God"  (Mark  xv.  43). 

2  I  spell  this  wotd    SanhedriK  throughout,  because  it  is  evidently  a  mere  transliteration  of  the  Greek 
word. 

3  I  can  see  no  ground  for  the  conjecture  of  Schleiermacher,  approved   by  Meander,  that  the  narrative 
was  derived  from  Anna  herself. 


CHAPTER    III. 


THE    VISIT    OF    THE    MAGI. 


"  O  Jerusalem,  look  about  thee  toward  the  east,  and  behold  the  joy  that  cometh  unto  thee  from  God.' 
— Baruch  iv.  36. 

>rll ill.   ^^,.0-- 

HE  brief  narrative  of  the  Visit  of  the  Magi,  re- 
corded in  the  second  chapter  of  St.  Matthew, 
is  of  the  deepest  interest  in  the  history  of 
,  1  Christianity.  It  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  Epiph- 
any, or  Manifestation  of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles. 
It  brings  the  facts  of  the  Gospel  history  into 
close  connection  with  Jewish  belief,  with  ancient 
prophecy,  with  secular  history,  and  with  modern 
science ;  and  in  doing  so  it  furnishes  us  with 
new  confirmations  of  our  faith,  derived  incident- 
ally, and  therefore  in  the  most  unsuspicious 
manner,  from  indisputable  and  unexpected  quarters. 

Herod  the  Great,  who,  after  a  life  of  splendid  mis- 
ery and  criminal  success,  had  now  sunk  into  the  jealous 
decrepitude  of  his  savage  old  age,  was  residing  in  his  new 
palace  on  Zion,  when,  half  maddened  as  he  was  already  by  the  crimes 
of  his  past  career,  he  was  thrown  into  a  fresh  paroxysm  of  alarm  and 
anxiety  by  the  visit  of  some  Eastern  Magi,  bearing  the  strange  intel- 
ligence that  they  had  seen  in  the  East  the  star  of  a  new-born  king  of 
the  Jews,  and  had  come  to  worship  him.  Herod,  a  mere  Idumsean  usurper, 
a  more  than  suspected  apostate,  the  detested  tyrant  over  an  unwilling 
people,  the  sacreligious  plunderer  of   the  tomb   of   David' — Herod,  a  de- 

I  On  seizing  the  throne,  with  the  support  of  the  Romans,  and  specially  of  Antony,  more  than  thirty 
years  before  (A.  U.C.  717),  Herod  (whose  mother.  Cypres,  was  an  Arabian,  and  his  father,  Antipater,  an 
Idumsan)  had  been  distinctly  informed  by  the  Sanhedrin  that,  in  obedience  to  Deut.  xvii.  15,  they  could  not 
accept  a  stranger  for  their  king.  This  faithfulness  caused  a  great  many  of  them  their  lives.  The  political 
and  personal  relations  of  Herod  were  evidently  well  adapted  for  the  furtherance  of  a  new  religion.  The 
rulers  of  the  Jews,  since  the  Captivity,  had  been  Persian  between  B.C.  536 — 332  ;  Egypto-Greek  and  Syro- 
Greek  between  B.C.  332 — 142  ;  Asmonjean  and  independent  between  B.C.  142 — 63  ;  and  under  Roman 
influences  since  the  conquest  of  Jerusalem  by  Pompey,  B.C.  63.  Under  Herod  (from  B.C.  37  to  the  birth 
of  Christ)  the  government  might  fairly  be  called  cosmopolitan.  In  him  the  East  and  the  West  were  united. 
By  birth  an  Edomite  on  the  father's  S'    ',  a'  4  ar  Is""  maelite  on   the  mother's,  he  represented  a  third  great 


48  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

scendant  of  the  despised  Ishmael  and  the  hated  Esau,  heard  the  tidings 
with  a  terror  and  indignation  which  it  was  hard  to  dissimulate.  The 
grandson  of  one  who,  as  was  beHeved,  had  been  a  mere  servitor  in  a 
temple  at  Ascalon,  and  who  in  his  youth  had  been  carried  off  by  Edo- 
mite  brigands,  he  well  knew  how  worthless  were  his  pretensions  to  an 
historic  throne  which  he  held  solely  by  successful  adventure.  But  his 
craft  equaled  his  cruelty,  and  finding  that  all  Jerusalem  shared  his  sus- 
pense, he  summoned  to  his  palace  the  leading  priests  and  theologians  of 
the  Jews — perhaps  the  relics  of  that  Sanhedrin  which  he  had  long  reduced 
to  a  despicable  shadow — to  inquire  of  them  where  the  Messiah'  was  to 
be  born.  He  received  the  ready  and  confident  answer  that  Bethlehem 
was  the  town  indicated  for  that  honor  by  the  prophecy  of  Micah.''  Con- 
cealing, therefore,  his  desperate  intention,  he  dispatched  the  wise  men  to 
Bethlehem,  bidding  them  to  let  him  know  as  soon  as  they  had  found 
the  child,  that  he  too  might  come  and  do  him  reverence. 

Before  continuing  the  narrative,  let  us  pause  to  inquire  who  these 
Eastern  wanderers  were,  and  what  can  be  discovered  respecting  their 
mysterious  mission. 

The  name  "  Magi,"  b)-  which  they  are  called  in  the  Greek  of  St. 
Matthew,  is  perfectly  vague.  It  meant  originally  a  sect  of  Median  and 
Persian  scholars ;  it  was  subsequently  applied  (as  in  Acts  xiii.  6)  to  pre- 
tended astrologers  or  Oriental  soothsayers.  Such  characters  were  well 
known  to  antiquity,  under  the  name  of  Chaldeans,  and  their  visits  were 
by  no  means  unfamiliar  even  to  the  Western  nations.  Diogenes  Laertius 
reports  to  us  a  story  of  Aristotle,  that  a  Syrian  mage  had  predicted  to 
Socrates  that  he  would  die  a  violent  death  ;  and  Seneca  informs  us  that 
magi  had  visited  the  tomb  of  Plato,  and  had  there  offered  incense  to 
him  as  a  divine  being.  There  is  nothing  but  a  mass  of  confused  and 
contradictory    traditions    to    throw    any    light    either    on    their  rank,  their 

division  of  the  Semitic  race  by  his  nominal  adoption  of  the  Jewish  religion.  Yet  his  life  was  entirely 
molded  by  conceptions  borrowed  from  the  two  great  Aryan  races  of  the  ancient  world  ;  his  conceptions  of 
policy  and  government  wore  entirely  Roman  ;  his  ideal  of  life  and  enjoyment  entirely  Greek.  And,  in 
addition  to  this,  he  was  surrounded  by  a  body-guard  of  barbarian  mercenaries.  At  no  previous  or  sub- 
sequent period  could  a  world-religion  have  been  more  easily  preached  than  it  was  among  the  heterogene- 
ous elements  which  were  brought  together  by  his  singular  tyranny.  His  astuteness,  however,  had  early 
taught  him  that  his  one  best  security  was  to  truckle  to  the  all-powerful  Romans. 

1  Not  as  in  the  English  version,  "  where  C/ir;>/ should  be  born  "  ;  for  it  is  "  the  Anointed."  "Christ" 
in  the  Gospels,  even  when  without  the  article  in  Greek,  which  is  only  in  four  passages,  is  almost  without 
exception  (John  xvii.  3)  an  appellative  and  not  a  proper  name. 

2  Micah  v.  2  ;  of.  John  vii.  42.  The  latter  passage  shows  how  familiarly  this  prophecy  was  known  to 
the  people.     The  Jewish  authorities  quote  the  text  loosely,  but  give  the  sense. 


THE    ANNUNCIATION. Lukc  i.   28. 


THE  VISIT  OF  THE  MAGI.  49 

country,  their  number,  or  their  names.  The  tradition  which  makes 
them  kings  was  probably  founded  on  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  (Ix.  3): 
'•And  the  Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings  to  the  brightness 
of  thy  rising."  The  fancy  that  they  were  Arabians  may  have  arisen  from 
the  fact  that  myrrh  and  frankincense  are  Arabian  products,  joined  to  the 
passage  in  Ps.  Ixxii.  10,  "The  kings  of  Tharshish  and  of  the  isles  shall 
give  presents ;  the  kings  of  Arabia  and  Saba  shall  bring  gifts." 

There  was  a  double  tradition  as  to  their  number.  Augustine  and 
Chrysostom  say  that  there  were  twelve,  but  the  common  belief,  arising 
perhaps  from  the  triple  gifts,  is  that  they  were  three  in  number.  The 
Venerable  Bede  even  gives  us  their  names,  their  country,  and  their  per- 
sonal appearance.  Melchior  was  an  old  man  with  white  hair  and  long 
beard ;  Caspar,  a  ruddy  and  beardless  youth  ;  Balthasar,  swarthy  and  in 
the  prime  of  life.  We  are  further  informed  by  tradition  that  Melchior 
was  a  descendant  of  Shem,  Caspar  of  Ham,  and  Balthasar  of  Japheth. 
Thus  they  are  made  representatives  of  the  three  periods  of  life,  and  the 
three  divisions  of  the  globe  ;  and  valueless  as  such  fictions  may  be  for 
direct  historical  purposes,  they  have  been  rendered  interesting  by  their 
influence  on  the  most  splendid  productions  of  religious  art."  The  skulls 
of  these  three  kings,  each  circled  with  its  crown  of  jeweled  gold,  are 
still  exhibited  among  the  relics  in  the  cathedral  at  Cologne." 

It  is,  however,  more  immediately  to  our  purpose  to  ascertain  the 
causes  of  their  memorable  journey. 

We  are  informed  by  Tacitus,  by  Suetonius,  and  by  Josephus,  that 
there  prevailed  throughout  the  entire  East  at  this  time  an  intense  con- 
viction, derived  from  ancient  prophecies,  that  ere  long  a  powerful  monarch 
would  arise  in  Judea,  and  gain  dominion  over  the  world.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  conjectured  that  the  Roman  historians  may  simply  be  echoing  an 
assertion,  for  which  Josephus  was  in  reality  their  sole  authority  ;  but  even 
if  we  accept  this  uncertain  supposition,  there  is  still  ample  proof,  both 
in  Jewish  and  in  Pagan  writings,  that  a  guilty  and  weary  world  was 
dimly  expecting  the  advent  of  its  Deliverer.  "  The  dew  of  blessing  falls 
not  on  us,  and  our  fruits  have  no  taste,"  exclaimed  Rabban  Simeon,  the 
son  of  Gamaliel ;  and  the  expression  might  sum  up  much  of  the  litera- 
ture of  an  age  which  was,  as  Niebuhr  says,  "  effete  with  the  drunken- 
ness of  crime."     The  splendid  vaticination  in  the  fourth  Eclogue  of  Virgil 

I  The  art-student  will  at  once  recall  the  glorious  pictures  of  Paul  Veronese,  Giovanni  Bellini,  &c. 
A    2  They  were  said  to  have  been  found  by  Bishop  Reinald  in  the  twelfth  century. 


50  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

proves  the  intensity  of  the  feeling,    and   has  long  been    reckoned   among 
the  "unconscious  prophecies  of  heathendom." 

There  is,  therefore,  nothing  extraordinary  in  the  fact  that  these 
Eastern  Magi  should  have  bent  their  steps  to  Jerusalem,  especially  if 
there  were  any  circumstances  to  awaken  in  the  East  a  more  immediate 
conviction  that  this  widespread  expectation  was  on  the  point  of  fulfill- 
ment. If  they  were  disciples  of  Zoroaster,  they  would  see  in  the  Infant 
King  the  future  conqueror  of  Ahriman,  the  destined  Lord  of  all  the 
World.  The  story  of  their  journey  has  indeed  been  set  down  with  con- 
temptuous confidence  as  a  mere  poetic  myth  ;  but  though  its  actual  his- 
toric verity  must  rest  on  the  testimony  of  the  Evangelist  alone,  there 
are  many  facts  which  enable  us  to  see  that  in  its  main  outlines  it 
involves  nothing  either  impossible  or  even  improbable. 

Now  St.  Matthew  tells  us  that  the  cause  of  their  expectant  attitude 
was  that  they  had  seen  the  star  of  the  Messiah  in  the  East,  and  that  to 
discover  Him  was  the  motive  of  their  journey. 

That  any  strange  sidereal  phenomenon  should  be  interpreted  as  the 
signal  of  a  coming  king,  was  in  strict  accordance  with  the  belief  of  their 
age.  Such  a  notion  may  well  have  arisen  from  the  prophecy  of  Balaam," 
the  Gentile  sorcerer — a  prophecy  which  from  the  power  of  its  rhythm, 
and  the  splendor  of  its  imagery,  could  hardly  fail  to  be  disseminated  in 
eastern  countries.  Nearly  a  century  afterwards,  the  false  Messiah,  in  the 
reign  of  Hadrian,  received  from  the  celebrated  Rabbi  Akiba,  the  surname 
of  Bar-Cocheba,  or  "  Son  of  a  Star,"  and  caused  a  star  to  be  stamped 
upon  the  coinage  which  he  issued.  Six  centuries  afterwards,  Mahomet 
is  said  to  have  pointed  to  a  comet  as  a  portent  illustrative  of  his  pre- 
tensions. Even  the  Greeks  and  Romans'"  had  always  considered  that  the 
births  and  deaths  of  great  men  were  symbolized  by  the  appearance  and 
disappearance  of  heavenly  bodies,  and  the  same  belief  has  continued 
down    to    comparatively    modern    times.       The     evanescent    star     which 

I  That  the  Jews  and  their  Rabbis  had  borrowed  many  astrological  notions  from  the  Chaldeans,  and 
that  they  connected  these  notions  with  the  advent  of  the  Messiah,  is  certain.  Comp.  Jos.  Antt.  ii.  9,  §  2, 
ana  i.  7,  §  2,  where  Josephus  quotes  Berosus  as  having  said  that  Abram  was  "skillful  in  the  celestial 
science." 

1  Every  one  will  remember  the  allusions  in  Shakespeare — 

"  The  Heavens  themselves  blaze  at  the  death  of  princes." — Henry  IV. 
and 

"  Comets  portending  change  of  time  and  state, 
Brandish  your  crystal  tresses  in  the  sky, 
And  with  them  scourge  the  bad  revolting  stars 
That  have  consented  to  our  Henry's  death." —  1  Henry  VI.,  \.  I, 


THE  VISIT  OF  THE  MAGI.  51 

appeared  in  the  time  of  Tycho  Brahe,  and  was  noticed  by  him  on 
November  ii,  1572,  was  believed  to  indicate  the  brief  but  dazzling  career 
of  some  warrior  from  the  north,  and  was  subsequently  regarded  as  having 
been  prophetic  of  the  fortunes  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  Now  it  so 
happens  that,  although  the  exact  year  in  which  Christ  was  born  is  not 
ascertainable  with  any  certainty  from  Scripture,  yet,  within  a  few  years  of 
what  must,  on  any  calculation,  have  been  the  period  of  His  birth,  there  un- 
doubtedly did  appear  a  phenomenon  in  the  heavens  so  remarkable  that  it 
could  not  possibly  have  escaped  the  observation  of  an  astrological  people. 
The  immediate  applicability  of  this  phenomenon  to  the  Gospel  narrative 
is  now  generally  abandoned ;  but,  whatever  other  theory  may  be  held 
about  it,  it  is  unquestionably  important  and  interesting  as  having  fur- 
nished one  of  the  data  which  first  led  to  the  discovery,  that  the  birth 
of  Christ  took  place  three  or  four  years  before  our  received  era.'  This 
appearance,  and  the  circumstances  which  have  been  brought  into  con- 
nection with  it,  we  will  proceed  to  notice.  They  form  a  curious  episode 
in  the  history  of  exegesis,  and  are  otherwise  remarkable ;  but  we  must 
fully  warn  the  reader  that  the  evidence  by  which  this  astronomical  fact 
has  been  brought  into  immediate  connection  with  St.  Matthew's  narrative 
is  purely  conjectural,  and  must  be  received,  if  received  at  all,  with  con- 
siderable caution. 

On  December  17,  1603,  there  occurred  a  conjunction  of  the  two 
largest  superior  planets,  Saturn  and  Jupiter,  in  the  zodiacal  sign  of  the 
Fishes,  in  the  watery  trigon.'  In  the  following  spring  they  were  joined 
in  the  fiery  trigon  by  Mars,  and  in  September,  1604,  there  appeared  in 
the  foot  of  Ophiuchus,  and  between  Mars  and  Saturn,  a  new  star  of  the 
first  magnitude,  which,  after  shining  for  a  whole  year,  gradually  waned 
in  March,  1606,  and  finally  disappeared.^  Brunowski,  the  pupil  of  Kepler, 
who  first  noticed  it,  describes  it  as  sparkling  with  an  interchange  of 
colors  like  a  diamond,    and   as  not    being  in  any  way   nebulous,  or  offer- 

1  This  is  the  date  adopted  by  Ideler,  Sanclement,  Wieseler.  Herod  the  Great  died  in  the  first  week  of 
Nisan,  A.U.C.  750,  as  we  can  prove,  partly  from  the  fact  that  shortly  before  his  death  there  was  an  eclipse 
of  the  moon  (Jos.  Antt.  xvii.  6,  §  4).  Ideler  and  Wurra  have  shown  that  the  only  eclipse  visible  at  Jerusalem 
in  the  year  750  A.U.C,  B.C.  4,  must  have  taken  place  in  the  night  between  the  12th  and  13th  of  March. 
Our  era  was  invented  by  Dionysius  Exiguus,  an  abbot  at  Rome,  who  died  in  556. 

2  Astrologers  divided  the  Zodiac  into  four  trigons — that  of  fire  (Aries,  Leo,  Sagittarius);  that  of 
earth  (Taurus,  Virgo,  Capricornus);  that  of  air  (Gemini,  Libra,  Aquarius);  and  that  of  water  (Cancer, 
Scorpio,  Pisces). 

3  The  star  observed  by  Tycho  lasted  from  November,  1572,  till  about  April,  1574.  Such  temporary 
stars  are  perhaps  due  to  immense  combustions  of  hydrogen. 


5^  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

iiigf  any  analogy  to  a  comet.'  These  remarkable  phenomena  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  great  Kepler,  who,  from  his  acquaintance  with 
astrology,  knew  the  immense  importance  which  such  a  conjunction  would 
have  had  in  the  eyes  of  the  Magi,  and  wished  to  discover  whether  any 
such  conjunction  had  taken  place  about  the  period  of  our  Lord's  birth. 
Now  there  is  a  conjunction  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  in  the  same  trigon 
about  every  twenty  years,  but  in  every  200  years  they  pass  into  another 
trigon,  and  are  not  conjoined  in  the  same  trigon  again  (after  passing 
through  the  entire  Zodiac),  till  after  a  lapse  of  794  years,  four  months, 
and  1 2  days.  By  calculating  backwards,  Kepler  discovered  that  the  same 
conjunction  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  in  Pisces,  had  happened  no  less  than 
three  times  in  the  year  A.  U.C.  747,  and  that  the  planet  Mars  had  joined 
them  in  the  spring  of  748 ;  and  the  general  fact  that  there  was  such  a 
combination  at  this  period  has  been  verified  by  a  number  of  independent 
investigators,''  and  does  not  seem  to  admit  of  denial  And  however  we 
may  apply  the  fact,  it  is  certainly  an  interesting  one.  For  such  a  con- 
junction would  at  once  have  been  interpreted  by  the  Chaldean  observers 
as  indicating  the  approach  of  some  memorable  event;  and  since  it 
occurred  in  the  constellation  of  Pisces,  which  was  supposed  by  astrolo- 
gers to  be  immediately  connected  with  the  fortunes  of  Judea,^  it  would 
naturally  turn  their  thoughts  in  that  direction.  The  form  of  their  inter- 
pretation would  be  molded,  both  by  the  astrological  opinions  of  the 
Jews — which  distinctly  point  to  this  very  conjunction  as  an  indication 
of  the  Messiah — and  by  the  expectation  of  a  Deliverer  which  was  so 
widely  spread  at  the  period  in  which  they  lived. 

The  appearance  and  disappearance  of  new  stars  is  a  phenomenon  by 
no  means  so  rare  as  to  admit  of  any  possible  doubt.  The  fact  that  St. 
Matthew  speaks  of  such  a  star  within  two  or  three  years,  at  the  utmost, 
of  a  time  when  we  know  that  there  was  this  remarkable  planetary  conjunc- 
tion,  and   the  fact  that  there  was  such  a  star  nearly  1,600  years  afterwards, 

1  There  may.  therefore,  be  no  exaggeration  in  the  language  of  Ignatius  when  he  says,  "The  star 
sparkled  brilliantly  above  all  stars." 

2  He  supposed  that  the  otherconjunctions  would  coincide  with  seven  great  climacteric  years  or  epochs: 
Adam,  Enoch,  the  Deluge,  Moses,  Isaiah  (about  the  commencement  of  the  Greek,  Roman,  and  Babylonian 
eras),  Christ,  Charlemagne,  and  the  Reformation. 

3  Kepler's  first  tract  on  this  subject  was  published  at  Prague,  1606.  Professor  Pritchard  carefully  went 
tflrough  Kepler's  calculations,  and  confirms  the  fact  of  the  conjunction,  though  he  slightly  modifies  the 
dates,  and,  like  most  recent  inquirers,  denies  that  the  phenomenon  has  any  bearing  on  the  Gospel  narrative. 
That  such  astronomical  facts  are  insufficient  to  explain  the  language  of  St.  Matthew,  if  taken  with  minute 
and  literal  accuracy,  is  obvious;  but  that  they  have  no  bearing  oiiiht  circumstances  as  they  were  reported  to 
the  Evangelist,  perhaps  half  a  century  later,  is  more  than  can  be  safely  affirmed. 


THE  VISIT  OF  THE  MAGI.  53 

at  the  time  of  a  similar  conjunction,  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  curious 
coincidence.  We  should,  indeed,  have  a  strong  and  strange  confirmation 
of  one  main  fact  in  St.  Matthew's  narrative,  if  any  reliance  could  be  placed 
on  the  assertion  that,  in  the  astronomical  tables  of  the  Chinese,  a 
record  has  been  preserved  that  a  new  star  did  appear  in  the  heavens  at 
this  very  epoch."  But  it  would  be  obviously  idle  to  build  on  a  datum 
which  is  so  incapable  of  verification    and  so    enveloped  with    uncertainty. 

We  are,  in  fact,  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  astronomical 
researches  which  have  proved  the  reality  of  this  remarkable  planetary 
conjunction  are  only  valuable  as  showing  the  possibility  that  it  may  have 
prepared  the  Magi  for  the  early  occurrence  of  some  great  event.  And 
this  confident  expectation  may  have  led  to  their  journey  to  Palestine,  on 
the  subsequent  appearance  of  an  evanescent  star,  an  appearance  by  no 
means  unparalleled  in  the  records  of  astronomy,  but  which  in  this  instance" 
seems  to  rest  on  the  authority  of  the  Evangelist  alone. 

No  one,  at  any  rate,  need  stumble  over  the  supposition  that  an 
apparent  sanction  is  thus  extended  to  the  combinations  of  astrology. 
Apart  from  astrology  altogether,  it  is  conceded  by  many  wise  and  candid 
observers,  even  by  the  great  Niebuhr,  the  -last  man  in  the  world  to  be 
carried  away  by  credulity  or  superstition,  that  great  catastrophes  and 
unusual  phenomena  in  nature  have,  as  a  matter  of  fact— however  we  may 
choose  to  interpret  such  a  fact — synchronized  in  a  remarkable  manner 
with  great  events  in  human  history.  It  would  not,  therefore,  imply  any 
prodigious  folly  on  the  part  of  the  Magi  to  regard  the  planetary  con- 
junction as  something  providentially  significant.  And  if  astrology  be 
ever  so  absurd,  yet  there  is  nothing  absurd  in  the  supposition  that  the 
Magi  should  be  led  to  truth,  even  through  the  gateways  of  delusion,  if 
the  spirit  of  sincerity  and  truth  was  in  them.  The  history  of  science 
will  furnish  repeated  instances,  not  only  of  the  enormous  discoveries 
accorded  to  apparent  accident,  but  even  of  the  immense  results  achieved 

1  This  is  mentioned  by  Wieseler,  p.  61.  We  cannot,  however,  press  the  Evangelist's  use  of  "a  star," 
rather  than  "a  constellation; "  the  two  words  are  loosely  used,  and  often  almost  indiscriminately  inter- 
changed. Further  than  this  it  must  be  steadily  borne  in  mind  that  the  curious  fact  of  the  planetary  conjunc- 
tion, even  if  it  were  accompanied  by  an  evanescent  star,  would  not  exactly  coincide  with,  though  it  might 
to  some  extent  account  for,  the  language  used  by  St.  Matthew. 

2  It  is  remarkable  that  the  celebrated  Abarbanel  (d.  1508),  in  his  commentary  on  Daniel,  distinctly 
says  that  the  conjunction  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  always  indicates  great  events.  He  then  gives  five  mystic 
reasons  why  Pisces  should  be  the  constellation  of  the  Israelites,  and  says  that  there  had  been  a  conjunction 
of  Jupiter  and  Saturn  in  Pisces  three  years  before  the  birth  of  Moses.  From  a  similar  conjunction  in  his  own 
days  (1463),  he  expected  the  speedy  birth  of  the  Messiah.  What  makes  this  statement  more  remarkable 
is,  that  Abarbanel  must  have  been  wholly  ignorant  of  the  conjunction  in  A.U.C.  747. 


54  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

in  the  investigation  of  innocent  and  honest  error.  Saul  who,  in  seeking 
asses,  found  a  kingdom,  is  but  a  type  of  many  another  seeker  in  many 
another  age.^' 

The  Magi  came  to  Bethlehem,  and  offered  to  the  young  child  in 
His  rude  and  humble  resting-place^  a  reverence  which  we  do  not  hear 
that  they  had  paid  to  the  usurping  Edomite  in  his  glittering  palace. 
"And  when  they  had  opened  their  treasures  they  presented  urfto  Him 
gifts,  gold,  and  frankincense,  and  myrrh."  The  imagination  of  early 
Christians  has  seen  in  each  gift  a  special  significance :  myrrh  for  the 
human  nature,  gold  to  the  king,  frankincense  to  the  divinity  ;  or,  the  gold 
for  the  race  of  Shem,  the  myrrh  for  the  race  of  Ham,  the  incense  for 
the  race  of  Japhet ; — innocent  fancies,  only  worthy  of  mention  because  of 
their  legendary  interest,  and  their  bearing  on  the  conceptions  of  Christian 
poetry  and  Christian  art. 

1  "Superstition,"  says  Neander,  "often  paves  the  way  for  faith."  "How  often,"  says  Hamann, 
"has  God  condescended  not  merely  to  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  men,  but  even  to  their  failings  and 
their  prejudices." 

2  Matt.  ii.  II  seems  to  show,  what  would  of  course  be  probable,  that  the  stall  or  manger  formed  but  a 
brief  resting-place.  It  is  needless  to  call  attention  to  the  obvious  fact  that  St.  Matthew  does  not  mention 
the  birth  in  the  inn,  or  the  previous  journey  from  Nazareth.  It  is  not  ntcessary  to  assume  that  he  was 
■wholly  unaware  of  these  circumstances,  though  I  see  no  difficulty  in  the  admission  that  such  may  have 
been  the  case. 


CHAPTER     IV. 


FLIGHT    INTO    EGYPT MASSACRE    OF    THE    INNOCENTS. 


"  Say,  who  are  these,  on  golden  wings. 
That  hover  round  the  new-born  King  of  kings  ? ' 


-Keble,  Christian  Vear. 


i<t^yc 


f 

HEN  they  had  offered  their  gifts,  the  Wise 
Men  would  naturally  have  returned  to  Herod, 
but  being  warned  of  God  in  a  dream,  they  re- 
turned to  their  own  land  another  way.  Neither 
in  Scripture,  nor  in  authentic  history,  nor  even 
in  early  apocryphal  tradition,  do  we  find  any 
further  traces  of  their  existence  ;  but  their  visit 
led  to  very  memorable  events. 

The  dream  which   warned  them   of   danger 
may    very    probably    have    fallen    in    with    their 
own    doubts    about    the   cruel    and    crafty  tyrant 
who  had  expressed  a  hypocritical  desire  to  pay  his  homage 
to  the   Infant    King;    and   if,  as  we   may  suppose,  they  im- 
parted   to    Joseph    any    hint    as    to  their  misgivings,  he  too 
would  be  prepared   for  the  warning  dream  which   bade  him 
fly  to  Egypt  to  save  the  young  child  from   Herod's  jealousy. 

Eo-ypt  has,  in  all  ages,  been  the  natural  place  of  refuge  for  all  who 
were  driven  from  Palestine  by  distress,  persecution,  or  discontent.  Rhin- 
ocolura,  the  river  of  Egypt,  or  as  Milton,  with  his  usual  exquisite  and 
learned  accuracy,  calls  it, — 

"  The  brook  that  parts 
Egypt  from  Syrian  ground,"  ' 

might  have  been  reached    by  the  fugitives  in  three  days,  and  once  upon 
the  further  bank,  they  were  beyond  the  reach  of  Herod's  jurisdiction. 

Of  the  flight,  and  its  duration.  Scripture  gives  us  no  further  par- 
ticulars ;     telling    us    only    that    the    Holy    Family    fled    by    night    from 

I  Milton  has,  however,  been  misled  by  the  word  wady,  and  its  translation  by  "  brook  "  in  our  version. 
Mr.  Grove  informs  me  that  Rhinocolura,  now  Wady  el-Areesh  (the  "  river  of  Egypt,"  Numb,  xxxiv.  5, 
&c.),  is  a  broad  shallow  wady  with  scarcely  a  trace  of  a  bank.  Still,  as  is  usual  in  desert  valleys,  a  torrent 
dees  flow  through  the  bottom  of  it  after  winter  rains. 


5^  THE  PRINCii  OF  GLORY. 

Bethlehem,  and  returned  when  Joseph  had  again  been  assured  by  & 
dream  that  it  would  be  safe  to  take  back  the  Saviour  to  the  land  of 
His  nativity.  It  is  left  to  apocryphal  legends,  immortalized  by  the  genius 
of  Italian  art,  to  tell  us  how,  on  the  way,  the  dragons  came  and  bowed 
to  Him,  the  lions  and  leopards  adored  Him,  the  roses  of  Jericho  blos- 
somed wherever  His  footsteps  trod,  the  palm-trees  at  His  command  bent 
down  to  give  them  dates,  the  robbers  were  overawed  by  His  majesty, 
and  the  journey  was  miraculously  shortened.  They  tell  us  further  how, 
at  His  entrance  into  the  country,  all  the  idols  of  the  land  of  Egypt  fell 
from  their  pedestals  with  a  sudden  crash,  and  lay  shattered  and  broken 
upon  their  faces,  and  how  many  wonderful  cures  of  leprosy  and  demoniac 
possession  were  wrought  by  His  word.  All  this  wealth  and  prodigality 
of  superfluous,  aimless,  and  unmeaning  miracle — arising  in  part  from  a 
mere  craving  for  the  supernatural,  and  in  part  from  a  fanciful  application 
of  Old  Testament  prophecies — furnishes  a  strong  contrast  to  the  truthful 
simplicity  of  the  Gospel  narrative.  St.  Matthew  neither  tells  us  where 
the  Holy  Family  abode  in  Egypt,  nor  how  long  their  exile  continued ; 
but  ancient  legends  say  that  they  remained  two  '  years  absent  from  Pal- 
estine, and  lived  at  Matareeh,'  a  few  miles  north-east  of  Cairo,  where  a 
fountain  was  long  shown  of  which  Jesus  had  made  the  water  fresh,  and 
an  ancient  sycamore  under  which  they  had  rested.  The  Evangelist 
alludes  only  to  the  causes  of  their  flight  and  of  their  return,  and  finds 
in  the  latter  a  new  and  deeper  significance  for  the  words  of  the  prophet 
Hosea,   "Out  of  Egypt  have   I  called  my  Son."' 

1  St.  Bonaventura  says  seven  years. 

2  This  town  is  sometimes  identified  with  On,  or  Heliopolis,  where  lived  Asenath,  the  wife  of  Joseph, 
and  where,  under  the  name  of  Osarsiph,  Moses  had  been  a  priest.  Onias,  at  the  head  of  a  large  colony  of 
Jewish  refugees,  flying  from  the  rage  of  Antiochus,  had  founded  a  temple  there,  and  was  thus  believed  to 
have  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Isa.  xix.  19. 

3  "  Finds  a  new  and  deeper  significance,  or,  in  other  words,  totally  misunderstands,"  is  the  marginal 
comment  of  a  friend  who  saw  these  pages.  And  so,  no  doubt,  it  might  at  first  appear  to  our  Western  and 
Northern  conceptions  and  methods  of  criticism  ;  but  not  so  to  an  Oriental  and  an  Analogist.  Trained  to 
regard  every  word,  nay,  every  letter,  of  Scripture  as  mystical  and  divine,  accustomed  to  the  application  of 
passages  in  various  senses,  a// of  which  were  supposed  to  be  latent,  in  some  mysterious  fashion,  under  the 
original  utterance,  St.  Matthew  would  have  regarded  his  least  apparently  relevant  quotations  from,  and 
allusions  to  the  Old  Testament,  not  in  the  light  of  occasional  illustrations,  but  in  the  light  of  most  solemn 
prophetic  references  to  the  events  about  which  he  writes.  And  in  so  doing  he  would  be  arguing  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  views  in  which  those  for  whom  he  wrote  had  been  trained  from  their  earliest  infancy. 
Nor  is  there,  even  to  our  modern  conceptions,  anything  erroneous  or  unnatural  in  the  fact  that  the 
Evangelist  transfers  to  the  Messiah  the  language  which  Hosea  had  applied  to  the  ideal  Israel.  The  ideal 
Israel— ;.^. ,  the  ideal  "  Jashar  "  or  "Upright  Man  ' — was  the  obvious  and  accepted  type  of  the  coming 
Christ. — The  quotation  is  from  Hosea  xi.  i,  and  St.  Matthew  has  here  referred  to  the  original,  and 
corrected  the  faulty  rendering  of  the  LXX.  ("  From  Egypt  I  called  his  children   '). 


FLIGHT  INTO  EGYPT— MASSACRE  OF  THE  INNOCENTS.  57 

The  flight  into  Egypt  led  to  a  very  memorable  event.  Seeing  that 
the  Wise  Men  had  not  returned  to  him,  the  alarm  and  jealousy  of 
Herod  assumed  a  still  darker  and  more  malignant  aspect.  He  had  no 
means  of  identifying  the  royal  infant  of  the  seed  of  David,  and  least  of 
all  would  he  have  been  likely  to  seek  for  him  in  the  cavern  stable  of  the 
village  khan.  But  he  knew  that  the  child  whom  the  visit  of  the  Magi 
had  taught  him  to  regard  as  a  future  rival  of  himself  or  of  his  house 
was  yet  an  infant  at  the  breast ;  and  as  Eastern  mothers  usually  suckle 
their  children  for  two  years,' 'he  issued  his  fell  mandate  to  slay  all  the 
male  children  of  Bethlehem  and  its  neighborhood  "  from  two  years  old 
and  under."  Of  the  method  by  which  the  decree  was  carried  out  we 
know  nothing.  The  children  may  have  been  slain  secretly,  gradually, 
and  by  various  forms  of  murder ;  or,  as  has  been  generally  supposed, 
there  may  have  been  one  single  hour  of  dreadful  butchery.'  The  decrees 
of  tyrants  like  Herod  are  usually  involved  in  a  deadly  obscurity ;  they 
reduce  the  world  to  a  torpor  in  which  it  is  hardly  safe  to  speak  above 
a  whisper.  But  the  wild  wail  of  anguish  which  rose  from  the  mothers 
thus  cruelly  robbed  of  their  infant  children  could  not  be  hushed,  and 
they  who  heard  it  might  well  imagine  that  Rachel,  the  great  ancestress 
of  their  race,  whose  tomb  stands  by  the  roadside  about  a  mile  from 
Bethlehem,  once  more — as  in  the  pathetic  image  of  the  prophet — mingled 
her  voice  with  the  mourning  and  lamentation  of  those  who  wept  so  in- 
consolably  for  their  murdered  little  ones.^ 

To  us  there  seems  something  inconceivable  in  a  crime  so  atrocious ; 
but  our  thoughts  have  been  softened  by  eighteen  centuries  of  Christianity, 
and  such  deeds  are  by  no  means  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  heathen 
despots  and  of  the  ancient  world.      Infanticide  of  a  deeper  dye  than  this 

1  2  Mace.  vii.  27,  "  gave  thee  suck  three  years."  Others  refer  the  calculation  to  the  previous  appear- 
ance of  the  planetary  conjunction  ;  and  if  this  took  place  A.U.C.  747,  and  Jesus  was  born  (as  is  all  but 
certain)  A.U.C.  750,  it  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  Abarbanel,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  places  the 
astrological  "aspect"  which  foreshadowed  the  birth  of  Moses  three  years  before  that  event  took  piace. 

2  The  Protevang,  says  (xxi.  i)  that  he  dispatched  the  assassins  to  Bethlehem. 

3  Jer.  xxxi.  15,  applied  originally  to  the  Captivity.  In  this  quotation  also  St.  Matthew  has  translated 
freely  from  the  Hebrew  original.  The  remark  of  Calvin,  that  "  Matthew  does  not  mean  that  tlte  propliet  had 
predicted  tvhat  Herod  should  do,  but  that,  at  the  advent  of  Christ,  that  mourning  was  renewed  which  many 
years  before  the  women  of  Bethlehem  had  made,"  is  characterized  by  his  usual  strong  and  honest  common 
sense,  and  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  considering  several  of  the  Gospel  references  to  ancient  prophecy.  It 
applies  to  St.  Matthew  more  strongly  than  to  the  other  Evangelists.  On  this,  as  on  other  points  of  exege- 
sis, there  can  be  no  question  whatever,  in  the  mind  of  any  competent  scholar,  that  the  theology  of  the 
Reformation,  and  even  of  the  Fathers,  was  freer,  manlier,  less  shackled  by  false  theories  about  inspiration, 
and  less  timid  of  ignorant  criticism,  than  that  which  clai-ns  to  t«:  the  sole  orthodox  theology  of  the  present 
day. 


58  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  Herod's  was  a  crime  dreadfully  rife  in  the  days  of  the  Empire,  and 
the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  as  well  as  the  motives  which  led  to  it,  can 
be  illustrated  by  several  circumstances  in  the  history  of  this  very  epoch. 
Suetonius,  in  his  Life  of  Augustus,  quotes  from  the  life  of  the  Emperor 
by  his  freedman  Julius  Marathus,  a  story  to  the  effect  that  shortly  before 
his  birth  there  was  a  prophecy  in  Rome  that  a  king  over  the  Roman 
people  would  soon  be  born.  To  obviate  this  danger  to  the  Republic, 
the  Senate  ordered  that  all  the  male  children  born  in  that  year  should 
be  abandoned  or  exposed ;  but  the  Senators,  whose  wives  were  pregnant, 
took  means  to  prevent  the  ratification  of  the  statue,  because  each  of 
them  hoped  that  the  prophecy  might  refer  to  his  own  child."  Again, 
Eusebius  quotes  from  Hegesippus,  a  Jew  by  birth,  a  story  that  Domitian, 
alarmed  by  the  growing  power  of  the  name  of  Christ,  issued  an  order 
to  destroy  all  the  descendants  of  the  house  of  David.  Two  grandchildren 
of  St.  Jude — "the  Lord's  brother" — were  still  living,  and  were  known  as 
the  Desposyni."  They  were  betrayed  to  the  Emperor  by  a  certain 
Jocatus,  and  other  Nazarean  heretics,  and  were  brought  into  the 
imperial  presence ;  but  when  Domitian  observed  that  they  only  held  the 
rank  of  peasants,  and  that  their  hands  were  hard  with  manual  toil,  he 
dismissed  them  in  safety  with  a  mixture  of  pity  and  contempt. 

Although  doubts  have  been  thrown  on  the  Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents, it  is  profoundly  in  accordance  with  all  that  we  know  of  Herod's 
character.  The  master-passions  of  that  able  but  wicked  prince  were  a 
most  unbounded  ambition,  and  a  most  excruciating  jealousy.  His  whole 
career  was  red  with  the  blood  of  murder.  He  had  massacred  priests 
and  nobles;  he  had  decimated  the  Sanhedrin ;  he  had  caused  the  High 
Priest,  his  brother-in-law,  the  young  and  noble  Aristobulus,  to  be 
drowned  in  pretended  sport  before  his  eyes  ;  he  had  ordered  the  strangu- 
lation of  his  favorite  wife,  the  beautiful  Asmonean  princess  Mariamne, 
though  she  seems  to  have  been  the  only  human  being  whom  he  pas- 
sionately  loved.'      His   sons    Alexander,  Aristobulus,    and    Antipater — his 

1  As  history,  no  doubt  the  anecdote  is  perfectly  worthless,  but  it  is  not  worthless  as  illustrating  what 
we  otherwise  know  to  have  been  possible  in  an  age  in  which,  as  is  still  the  case  in  China,  infanticide 
was  hardly  regarded  as  a  disgrace. 

2  This  fact  is  mentioned  by  Julius  Africanus.  who  was  born  at  Emmaus,  about  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century,  and  who  says  that  he  knew  some  of  the  Desposyni  personally.     (Euseb.  Hisl.  Ecc.  i.  7.) 

3  The  feelings  of  Herod  towards  Mariamne,  who,  as  a  Maccabean  princess,  had,  far  more  right  to  the 
sovereignty  than  himself,  were  not  unlike  those  of  Henry  VII.  towards  Elizabeth  of  York,  and  in  a  less 
degree  those  of  William  III.  towards  Mary.  Herod  was  well  aware  that  he  owed  his  sovereignty  solely  to 
"the  almighty  Romans.'     Aristobulus  was  murdered   at  the   age  of  eighteen,  Hyrcanus  at   the  age  of 


FLIGHT  INTO  EGYPT— MASSACRE  OF  THE  INNOCENTS.'  59 

uncle  Joseph — Antigonus  and  Alexander,  the  uncle  and  father  of  his 
wife — his  mother-in-law  Alexandra — his<  kinsman  Cortobanus — his  friends 
Dositheus  and  Gadias,  were  but  a  few  of  the  multitudes  who  fell  victims 
to  his  sanguinary,  suspicious,  and  guilty  terrors.  His  brother  Pheroras 
and  his  son  Archelaus  barely  and  narrowly  escaped  execution  by  his 
orders.  Neither  the  blooming  youth  of  the  prince  Aristobulus,  nor  the 
white  hairs  of  the  king  Hyrcanus  had  protected  them  from  his  fawning 
and  treacherous  fury.  Deaths  by  strangulation,  deaths  by  burning, 
deaths  by  being  cleft  asunder,  deaths  by  secret  assassination,  confessions 
forced  by  unutterable  torture,  acts  of  insolent  and  inhuman  lust,  mark 
the  annals  of  a  reign  which  was  so  cruel  that,  in  the  energetic  language 
of  the  Jewish  ambassadors  to  the  Emperor  Augustus,  "  the  survivors 
during  his  lifetime  were  even  more  miserable  than  the  sufferers."  And 
as  in  the  case  of  Henry  VHI.,  every  dark  and  brutal  instinct  of  his 
character  seemed  to  acquire  fresh  intensity  as  his  life  drew  towards  its 
close.  Haunted  by  the  specters  of  his  murdered  wife  and  murdered 
sons,  agitated  by  the  conflicting  furies  of  remorse  and  blood,  the  piti- 
less monster,  as  Josephus  calls  him,  was  seized  in  his  last  days  by  a 
black  and  bitter  ferocity,  which  broke  out  against  all  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact'  There  is  no  conceivable  difficulty  in  supposing  that 
such  a  man — a  savage  barbarian  with  a  thin  veneer  of  corrupt  and  super- 
ficial civilization — would  have  acted  in  the  exact  manner  which  St. 
Matthew  describes ;  and  the  belief  in  the  fact  receives  independent  con- 
firmation from  various  sources.  "  On  Augustus  being  informed,"  says 
Macrobius,  "that  among  the  boys  utider  two  years  of  age  whom  Herod 
ordered  to  be  slain  in  Syria,  his  own  son  also  had  been  slain,"  "  It  is 
better,"  said  he,  "to  be  Herod's  pig  (yy)  than  his  son  (yiov)." '  Although 
Macrobius  is  a  late  writer,  and  made  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
Herod's  son  Antipater,  who  was  put  to  death  about  the  same  time  as 
the   Massacre  of    the    Innocents,  had    actually  perished  in  that    massacre, 

eighty  ;  and  he  hated  them  alike  for  their  popularity,  and  for  their  Maccabean  origin.  More  ghosts  must 
have  gathered  round  the  dying  bed  of  this  '  gorgeous  criminal  "  than  those  which  the  fancy  of  Shakes- 
peare has  collected  round  the  bed  of  Richard  III. 

1  "  Most  miserable  family,  even  to  the  third  generation,  to  be  imbued  so  deep  beyond  any  other  in 
blood  ;  one  steeped  in  the  blood  of  infant  martyrs,  the  other  in  that  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  the  third  who 
slew  James  the  Apostle  with  the  sword — all  three  conspicuous  in  the  persecution  of  Christ." 

2  The  pun  cannot  be  preserved  in  English.  Augustus  meant  that  Herod's  pig,  since,  as  a  Jew,  he 
could  not  eat  it,  would  be  safer  than  his  son.  Herod  had  to  ask  the  Emperor's  leave  before  putting  his 
sons  to  death  ;  and  Antipater,  whom  he  ordered  to  be  executed  only  five  days  before  his  death,  was  the 
third  who  had  undergone  this  fate. — Macrobius  lived  about  A.D.  400,  but  he  used  early  materials,  and  the 
pun  is  almost  certainly  historical. 


6o  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

it    is  clear  that  the   form  in  which    he  narrates    the  bon  mot  of  Augustus 

points  to  some  dim  reminiscence  of  this  cruel  slaughter. 

Why  then,  it  has  been  asked,  does  Josephus  make  no  mention  of  so 
infamous  an  atrocity?  Perhaps  because  it  was  performed  so  secretly  that 
he  did  not  even  know  of  it.  Perhaps  because,  in  those  terrible  days,  the 
murder  of  a  score  of  children,  in  consequence  of  a  transient  suspicion,  would 
have  been  regarded  as  an  item  utterly  insignificant  in  the  list  of  Herod's 
murders.'  Perhaps  because  it  was  passed  over  in  silence  by  Nikolaus  of 
Damascus,  who,  writing  in  the  true  spirit  of  those  Hellenising  courtiers, 
who  wanted  to  make  a  political  Messiah  out  of  a  corrupt  and  blood- 
stained usurper,  magnified  all  his  patron's  achievements,  and  concealed  or 
palliated  all  his  crimes."  But  the  more  probable  reason  is  that  Josephus, 
whom,  in  spite  of  all  the  immense  literary  debt  which  we  owe  to  him, 
we  can  only  regard  as  a  renegade  and  a  sycophant,  did  not  choose  to 
make  any  allusion  to  facts  which  were  even  remotely  connected  with  the 
life  of  Christ.  The  single  passage  in  which  he  alludes  to  Him  is  inter- 
polated, if  not  wholly  spurious,  and  no  one  can  doubt  that  his  silence  on 
the  subject  of  Christianity  was  as  deliberate  as  it  was    dishonest. 

But  although  Josephus  does  not  distinctly  mention  the  event,  yet 
every  single  circumstance  which  he  does  tell  us  about  this  very  period  of 
Herod's  life  supports  its  probability.  At  this  very  time  two  eloquent 
Jewish  teachers,  Judas  and  Matthias,  had  incited  their  scholars  to  pull 
down  the  large  golden  eagle  which  Herod  had  placed  above  the  great 
gate  of  the  Temple.  Josephus  connects  this  bold  attempt  with  premature 
rumors  of  Herod's  death;  but  Lardner's  conjecture  that  it  may  have  been 
further  encouraged  by  the  Messianic  hopes  freshly  kindled  by  the  visit  of 
the  Wise  Men,  is  by  no  means  impossible.     The  attempt,    however,    was 

1  The  probable  number  of  the  Innocents  has  been  extraordinarily  exaggerated.  Considering  that 
Bethlehem  was  but  a  village  of  perhaps  2,000  inhabitants,  we  may  safely  hope  that,  even  in  all  its  bound- 
aries, not  more  than  twenty  male  children  were  sacrificed,  and  perhaps  not  half  that  number. 

2  Josephus'  own  opinion  of  the  kind  of  men  who  were  Herod's  creatures  and  parasites  may  be  found 
in  his^wrt.  xvi.  5,  §  4.  As  to  Josephus,  his  own  narrative  is  his  worst  condemnation,  and  De  Quincey's 
estimate  of  him  (  Works,  vi.  272—275)  is  not  too  severe.  His  works  betray  some  of  the  worst  character- 
istics of  the  Oriental  and  the  Pharisee.  He  may  have  omitted  all  mention  of  Christ  out  of  sheer  perplexity, 
although  he  certainly  rejected  his  Messiahship.  Nothing  is  more  common  in  historians  and  biographers 
than  the  deliberate  suppression  of  awkward  and  disagreeable  facts.  Justus  of  Tiberius,  another  contem- 
porary historian,  was  also  purposely  reticent.  Does  any  one  doubt  the  murder  of  Crispus,  because  Euse- 
bius  takes  no  notice  of  it  in  his  life  of  Constantine  ?  But  perhaps,  after  all,  there  is  an  allusion— though 
guarded  and  distant— to  this  crime,  or  at  any  rate  to  the  circumstances  which  led  to  it,  in  the  Antiquities  of 
Josephus  (xvi.  11,  §  7;  xvii.  2,  §  4),  where  it  is  narrated  that  Herod  slew  a  number  of  Pharisees  and  others 
because  they  foretold  "how  God  had  decreed  that  Herod's  government  should  cease,  and  his  posterity 
should  be  deprived  of  it."  Possibly  another  allusion  (though  out  of  place)  may  be  found  in  xiv.  9,  §  4. 
where  we   hear  of  a  clamor  against   Herod,  raised  by   "  The  mothers  of  those  who  had  been  slain  by  him." 


FLIGHT  INTO  EGYPT— MASSACRE  OF  THE  INNOCENTS.  6i 

defeated,  and  Judas  and  Matthias,  with  forty  of  their  scholars,  were 
burned  ahve.  With  such  crimes  as  this  before  him  on  every  page, 
Josephus  might  well  have  ignored  the  secret  assassination  of  a  few 
unweaned  infants  in  a  little  village.  Their  blood  was  but  a  drop  in  that 
crimsion  river  in  which   Herod  was  steeped  to  the  very  lips. 

It  must  have  been  very  shortly  after  the  murder  of  the  Innocents 
that  Herod  died.  Only  five  days  before  his  death  he  had  made  a  frantic 
attempt  at  suicide,  and  had  ordered  the  execution  of  his  eldest  son  Anti- 
pater.  His  deathbed,  which  once  more  reminds  us  of  Henry  VIII.,  was 
accompanied  by  circumstances  of  peculiar  horror,  and  it  has  been  noticed 
that  the  terrible  disease  of  which  he  died  is  hardly  mentioned  in  history, 
except  in  the  case  of  men  who  have  been  rendered  infamous  by  an 
atrocity  of  persecuting  zeal."  On  his  bed  of  intolerable  anguish,  in  that 
splendid  and  luxurious  palace  which  he  had  built  for  him.self  under  the 
palms  of  Jericho,  swollen  with  disease  and  scorched  by  thirst — ulcerated 
externally  and  glowing  inwardly  with  a  "soft  slow  fire" — surrounded  by 
plotting  sons  and  plundering  slaves,  detesting  all  and  detested  by  all — 
longing  for  death  as  a  release  from  his  tortures,  yet  dreading  it  as  the 
beginning  of  worse  terrors — stung  by  remorse,  yet  still  unslaked  with 
murder — a  horror  to  all  around  him,  yet  in  his  guilty  conscience  a  worse 
terror  to  himself — devoured  by  the  premature  corruption  of  an  anticipated 
grave — eaten  of  worms  as  though  visibly  smitten  by  the  finger  of  God's 
wrath  after  seventy  years  of  successful  villainy — the  wretched  old  man, 
whom  men  had  called  the  Great,  lay  in  savage  frenzy  awaiting  his  last 
hour.  As  he  knew  that  none  would  shed  one  tear  for  him,  he  deter- 
mined that  they  should  shed  many  for  theinsclves,  and  issued  an  order 
that,  under  pain  of  death,  the  principal  families  in  the  kingdom  and  the 
chiefs  of  the  tribes  should  come  to  Jericho.  They  came  ; — and  then, 
shutting  them  in  the  hippodrome,  he  secretly  commanded  his  sister 
Salome  that  at  the  moment  of  his  death  they  should  all  be  massacred. 
And  so,  choking  as  it  were  with  blood,  devising  massacres  in  its  very 
delirium,   the  soul  of  Herod  passed  forth   into  the  night. 

In  purple  robes,  with  crown  and  scepter  and  precious  stones,  the 
corpse  was  placed  upon  its  splendid  bier,  and  accompanied  with  military 
pomp  and  burning  incense  to  its  grave  in  the  Herodium,  not  far  from 
the    place    where    Christ   was    born.        But     the     spell    of     the     Herodian 

1  E.g.,    Pheretiraa,    Antiochus    Epiphanes,    Sylla,    Maximian,    Diocletian,    Herod    the   Great.    Herod 
..£   •.t^t^a.  the  puke  of  A'.va,  Henry  VUI.,  &c. 


62  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

dominion  was  broken,  and  the  people  saw  how  illusory  had  been  its  glit- 
tering fascination.  The  day  of  Herod's  death  was,  as  he  had  foreseen, 
observed  as  a  festival.  His  will  was  disputed;  his  kingdom  disintegrated ; 
his  last  order  was  disobeyed  ;  his  sons  died  for  the  most  part  in  infamy 
and  exile  ;  the  curse  of  God  was  on  his  house,  and  though,  by  ten  wives 
and  many  concubines,  he  seems  to  have  had  nine  sons  and  five  daugh- 
ters, yet  within  a  hundred  years  the  family  of  the  Temple-servitor  of 
Ascalon  had  perished  by  disease  or  violence,  and  there  was 'no  living 
descendant  to  perpetuate  his  name.' 

If  the  intimation  of  Herod's  death  was  speedily  given  to  Joseph,  the 
stay  in  Egypt  must  have  been  too  short  to  influence  in  any  way  the 
human  development  of  our  Lord.  This  may  perhaps  be  the  reason  why 
St.  Luke  passes  it  over  in  silence. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  first  intention  of  Joseph  to  fix  his  home 
in  Bethlehem.  It  was  the  city  of  his  ancestors,  and  was  hallowed  by 
many  beautiful  and  heroic  associations.  It  would  have  been  easy  to  find 
a  living  there  by  a  trade  which  must  almost  anywhere  have  supplied  the 
simple  wants  of  a  peasant  family.  It  is  true  that  an  Oriental  rarely 
leaves  his  home  ;  but  when  he  has  been  compelled  by  circumstances  to 
do  so,  he  finds  it  comparatively  easy  to  settle  elsewhere.  Having  once 
been  summoned  to  Bethlehem,  Joseph  might  find  a  powerful  attraction 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  little  town  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  the  more  so  since  it 
had  recently  been  the  scene  of  such  memorable  circumstances.  But,  on 
his  way,  he  was  met  by  the  news  that  Archelaus  ruled  in  the  room  of 
his  father  Herod.''  The  people  would  only  too  gladly  have  got  rid  of 
the  whole  Idumaean  race  ;  at  the  worst  they  would  have  preferred  Antipas 
to  Archelaus.  But  Augustus  had  unexpectedly  decided  in  favor  of 
Archelaus,  who,  though  younger  than  Antipas,  was  the  heir  nominated 
by  the  last  will  of  his  father ;  and    as    though  anxious    to    show    that   he 

1  Antipater,  father  of  Herod;  is  said  to  have  been  a  hierodouhs  or  servitor  in  a  temple  of  Apollo  at 
Ascalon.     Compare  the  rapid  extinction  of  the  sons  of  Philip  the  Fair. 

2  Matt.  ii.  22.  He  was  saluted  "  king"  by  the  army,  though  he  declined  the  title.  Similarly  Josephus 
gives  the  name  of  "  kingdom  "  to  the  tetrarchy  of  Lysanias  (5. y.  ii.  ii,  §5).  The  word  "  reigns  "  seems, 
however — if  taken  quite  strictly — to  show  that  the  return  from  Egypt  was  very  shortly  after  the  flight 
thither  ;  for  it  was  only  during  a  short  time  after  his  father's  death  that  Archelaus  strictly  had  the  title  of 
king  (cf.  Jos.  B.J.  ii.  i,  §  i).  When  he  went  to  Rome  for  the  confirmation  of  his  title,  Augustus  only 
allowed  him  to  be  called  ethnarch  ;  but  before  this  time  his  assumptions  of  royalty,  by  sitting  on  a  golden 
throne,  &c.,  were  actually  part  of  Antipater's  charges  against  him,  and  at  this  period  Josephus  distinctly 
calls  him  the  "king"  (.4ntt.  xvii.  9,  §2).  It  is  remarkable  ho-u  near  the  Evangelists  often  seem 
to  be  to  an  inaccuracy,  while  yet  closer  inspection  shows  them  to  oe,  '.n  these  very  points,  minutely 
accurate. 


FLIGHT  INTO  EGYPT— MASSACRE  OF  THE  INNOCENTS.  63 

was  h^  true  son  of  that  father,  Archelaus,  even  before  his  inheritance 
had  been  confirmed  by  Roman  authority,  "had,"  as  Josephus'  scornfully 
remarks,  "given  to  his  subjects  a  specimen  of  his  future  virtue,  by 
ordering  a  slaughter  of  3,cxx)  of  his  own  countrymen  at  the  Temple." 
It  was  clear  that  under  such  a  government  there  could  be  neither  hope 
nor  safety ;  and  Joseph,  obedient  once  more  to  an  intimation  of  God's 
will,  seeking  once  more  the  original  home  of  himself  and  Mary,  "  turned 
aside  into  the  parts  of  Galilee,"^  where,  in  remote  obscurity,  sheltered  by 
poverty  and  insignificance,  the  Holy  Family  might  live  secure  under  the 
sway  of  another  son  of  Herod — the  equally  unscrupulous,  but  more 
indolent  and  indifferent  Antipas. 

1  ^ntt.  xvii.  II,  §  2.  Augustus  afterwards  banished  him  forhis  tyranny  and  insolence,  and  he  died  at 
Vienne  in  Gaul,  A.D.  7  (id.  13,  §  2). 

2  Matt.  ii.  22,  not  "returned."  but  "  retired."  The  same  word  is  used  of  the  flight  into  Egypt  (Matt. 
ii.  14).  St.  Luke  (ii.  39)  was  either  unaware  of  the  flight  into  Egypt,  or  passed  it  over  as  having  no  bear'r.g 
on  his  subjecL 


CHAPTER   V. 


THE    BOYHOOD    OF    JESUS. 


"  Try   to  become   little   with   the   Little   One,   that  you   may   increase  in   stature  with   Him." — St.  Bon- 
AVE.VTIRA,   Vila   Chrisli,   ix. 


■"\ 


HE  physical  geography  of  Palestine  is,  perhaps, 
more  distinctly  marked  than  that  of  any  other 
country  in  the  world.  Along  the  shore  of  the 
Mediterranean  runs  the  Shephelah  and  the 
maritime  plain,  broken  only  by  the  bold  spur 
of  Mount  Carmel ;  parallel  to  this  is  a  long 
range  of  hills,  for  the  most  part  rounded  and 
featureless  in  their  character ;  these,  on  their 
eastern  side,  plunge  into  the  declivity  of  El 
Ghor,  the  Jordan  valley  ;  and  beyond  the  Jor- 
dan valley  runs  the  straight,  unbroken,  purple 
line  of  the  mountains  of  Moab  and  Gilead.  Thus  the 
character  of  the  country  from  north  to  south  may  be 
represented  by  four  parallel  bands — the  Sea-board,  the  Hill 
country,  the  Jordan  valley,  and  the  Trans-Jordanic  range. 
The  Hill  country,  which  thus  occupies  the  space  between  the  low 
maritime  plain  and  the  deep  Jordan  valley,  falls  into  two  great  masses, 
the  continuity  of  the  low  mountain-range  being  broken  by  the  plain  of 
Jezreel.  The  souihern  mass  of  those  limestone  hills  formed  the  land  of 
Judea  ;    the  northern,  the  land  of  Galilee. 

Gd/il,  in  Hebrew,  means  "a  circle,"  and  the  name  was  originally 
applied  to  the  twenty  cities  in  the  circuit  of  Kedesh-Naphtali,  which 
Solomon  gave  to  Hiram  in  return  for  his  services  in  transporting  timber, 
and  to  which  Hiram,  in  extreme  discontent,  applied  the  name  of  Cabiil, 
or  "disgusting."  Thus  it  seems  to  have  been  always  the  destiny  of 
Galilee  to  be  despised  ;  and  that  contempt  was  likely  to  be  fostered  in 
the  minds  of  the  Jews  from  the  fact  that  this  district  became,  from  very 
early  days,   the  residence  of   a   mixed    population,   and    was    distinguished 


THE  BOYHOOD  OF  JESUS.  65 

as  "Galilee  of  the  Gentiles."'  Not  only  were  there  many  Phenicians 
and  Arabs  in  the  cities  of  Galilee,  but,  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  there 
were  also  many  Greeks,  and  the  Greek  language  was  currently  spoken 
and  understood. 

The  hills  which  form  the  northern  limit  of  the  plain  of  Jezreel  run 
almost  due  east  and  west  from  the  Jordan  valley  to  the  Mediterranean, 
and  their  southern  slopes  were  in  the  district  assigned  to  the  tribe  of 
Zebulun. 

Almost  in  the  center  of  this  chain  of  hills  there  is  a  singular  cleft 
in  the  limestone,  forming  the  entrance  to  a  little  valley.  As  the  traveler 
leaves  the  plain  he  will  ride  up  a  steep  and  narrow  pathway,  broidered 
with  grass  and  flowers,  through  scenery  which  is  neither  colossal  nor 
overwhelming,  but  infinitely  beautiful  and  picturesque.  Beneath  him,  on 
the  right-hand  side,  the,  vale  will  gradually  widen,  until  it  becomes  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  breadth.  The  basin  of  the  valley  is  divided  by 
hedges  of  cactus  into  little  fields  and  gardens,  which,  about  the  fall  of 
the  spring  rains,  wear  an  aspect  of  indescribable  calm,  and  glow  with  a 
tint  of  the  richest  green.  Beside  the  narrow  pathway,  at  no  great  dis- 
tance apart  from  each  other, 'are  two  wells,  and  the  women  who  draw 
water  there  are  more  beautiful,  and  the  ruddy,  bright-eyed  shepherd  boys 
who  sit  or  play  by  the  well-sides,  in  their  gay-colored  Oriental  costume, 
are  a  happier,  bolder,  brighter-looking  race  than  the  traveler  will  have 
seen  elsewhere.  Gradually  the  valley  opens  into  a  little  natural  amphi^ 
theater  of  hills,  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  crater  of  an  extinct  vol- 
cano ;  and  there,  clinging  to  the  hollows  of  a  hill,  which  rises  to  the  height 
of  some  five  hundred  feet  above  it,  lie,  "like  a  handful  of  pearls  in  a 
goblet  of  emerald,"  the  flat  roofs  and  narrow  streets  of  a  little  Eastern 
town.  There  is  a  small  church  ;  the  massive  buildings  of  a  convent ;  the 
tall  minaret  of  a  mosque ;  a  clear,  abundant  fountain  ;  houses  built  of 
white  stone,  and  gardens  scattered  among  them,  umbrageous  with  figs 
and  olives,  and  rich  with  the  white  and  scarlet  blossoms  of  orange  and 
pomegranate. 

In  spring,  at  least,  everything  about  the  place  looks  indescribably 
bright  and  soft ;  doves  murmur  in  the  trees ;  the  hoopoe  flits  about 
in  ceaseless  activity ;  the  bright  blue  roller-bird,  the  commonest 
and  loveliest  bird  of  Palestine,  flashes  like  a  living  sapphire  over  fields 
which  are  enameled  with    innumerable    flowers.     And    that    little    town  is 

I  Compare  Judg.  iv.  2,  "  Harosheth  of  the  Gentiles  ;"  and  Isa.  ix.  i;  Matt.  iv.  15  ;  i  Mace.  v.  15—27. 
5 


66  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

En  Ndzirah,  Nazareth,'  where  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  mankind, 
spent  nearly  thirty  years  of  His  mortal  life.  It  was,  in  fact.  His  native 
village.  His  home  for  all  but  three  or  four  years  of  His  life  on  earth; 
the  village  which  lent  its  then  ignominious  name  to  the  scornful  title 
written  upon  His  cross;  the  village  from  which  He  did  not  disdain  to 
draw  His  appellation  when  he  spake  in  vision  to  the  persecuting  Saul." 
And  along  the  narrow  mountain-path  which  I  have  described,  His  feet 
must  have  often  trod,  for  it  is  the  only  approach  by  which,  in  returning 
northwards  from  Jerusalem,  He  could  have  reached  the  home  of  His 
infancy,  youth,  and  manhood. 

What  was  His  manner  of  life  during  those  thirty  years?  It  is  a 
question  which  the  Christian  cannot  help  asking  in  deep  reverence,  and 
with  yearning  love  ;  but  the  words  in  which  the  Gospels  answer  it  are 
very  calm  and  very  few. 

Of  the  four  Evangelists,  St.  John,  the  belovod  disciple,  and  St. 
Mark,  the  friend  and  "son"  of  St.  Peter,^  pass  over  these  thirty  years 
in  absolute,  unbroken  silence.  St.  Matthew  devotes  one  chapter  to  the 
visit  of  the  Magi,  and  the  Flight  into  Egypt,  and  then  proceeds  to  the 
preaching  of  the  Baptist.  St.  Luke  alond",  after  describing  the  incidents 
which  marked  the  presentation  in  the  Temple,  preserves  for  us  one 
inestimable  anecdote  of  the  Saviour's  boyhood,  and  one  inestimable  verse 
descriptive  of  His  growth  till  He  was  twelve  years  old.  And  that  verse 
contains  nothing  for  the  gratification  of  our  curiosity ;  it  furnishes  us  with 
no  details  of  life,  no  incidents  of  adventure  ;  it  tells  us  only  how,  in  a 
sweet  and  holy  childhood,  "  the  child  grew  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit, 
filled  with  wisdom,  and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  Him."  To  this  period 
of  His  life,  too,  we  may  apply  the  subsequent  verse,  "  And  Jesus 
increased  in  wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and  man."  His 
development  was  a  strictly  human  development.  He  did  not  come  into 
the  world  endowed  with  infinite  knowledge,  but,  as  St.  Luke  tells  us, 
"He  gradually  advanced  in  wisdom."*      He  was  not  clothed  with  infinite 

1  Nazareth  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament  ;  unless  it  be  identical  with  Sarid,  which  is  men- 
tioned as  the  border  of  the  inheritance  of  Zebulun  in  Josh.  xix.  lo.  12.  The  position  accurately  corre- 
sponds,  but  it  is  philologically  difficult  to  suppose  that  Nazareth  is  a  corruption— as  some  have  suggested— 
of  En  Sar,W(lhe  fountain  or  spring  of  Sarid).  It  has  been  more  usually  connected  with  //User  (a  branch). 
and  perhaps  in  allusion  to  this  St.  Jerome  compares  it  to  an  opening  rose,  and  calls  it  "the  flower  of 
Galilee."     It  is  not  once  mentioned  by  Josephus. 

2  John  XIX.  19;  Luke  ii.  51  ;  Acts  xxii.  S, 

3  ■■  Marcus,  my  son"  (i  Pet.  v.  13). 

4  Luke  ii.  52.     Cf.  Heb.  v.  8. 


THE  BOYHOOD  OF  JESUS.  67 

power,  but  experienced  the  weaknesses  and  imperfections  of  human 
infancy.  He  grew  as  other  children  grow,  only  in  a  childhood  of 
stainless  and  sinless  beauty — "  as  the  flower  of  roses  in  the  spring  of 
the  year,  and  as  lilies  by  the  waters."' 

There  is,  then,  for  the  most  part  a  deep  silence  in  the  Evangelists 
respecting  this  period ;  but  what  eloquence  in  their  silence !  May  we 
not  find  in  their  very  reticence  a  wisdom  and  an  instruction  more 
profound  than  if  they  had  filled  many  volumes  with  minor  details  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  see  in  this  their  silence  a  signal  and 
striking  confirmation  of  their  faithfulness.  We  may  learn  from  it  that 
they  desired  to  tell  the  simple  truth,  and  not  to  construct  an  astonishing 
or  plausible  narrative.  That  Christ  should  have  passed  thirty  years  of 
His  brief  life  in  the  deep  obscurity  of  a  provincial  village ;  that  He 
should  have  been  brought  up  not  only  in  a  conquered  land,  but  in  its 
most  despised  province  ;  not  only  in  a  despised  province,  but  in  its  most 
disregarded  valley ; '  that  during  all  those  thirty  years  the  ineffable 
brightness  of  His  divine  nature  should  have  tabernacled  among  us,  "  in 
a  tent  like  ours,  and  of  the  same  material,"  unnoticed  and  unknown ; 
that  during  those  long  years  there  should  hava  been  no  flash  of  splendid 
circumstance,  no  outburst  of  amazing  miracle,  no  "sevenfold  chorus  of 
hallelujahs  and  harping  symphonies"  to  announce,  and  reveal,  and  glorify 
the  coming  King — this  is  not  what  we  should  have  expected — not  what 
any  one  would  have  been  likely  to  imagine  or  to  invent. 

We  should  not  have  expected  it,  but  it  was  so ;  and  therefore  the 
Evangelists  leave  it  so ;  and  the  very  fact  of  its  contradicting  all  that 
we  should  have  imagined,  is  an  additional  proof  that  so  it  must  have 
been.  An  additional  proof,  because  the  Evangelists  must  inevitably  have 
been — as,  indeed,  we  know  that  they  ivere — actuated  by  the  same  a  priori 
anticipations  as  ourselves ;  and  had  there  been  any  glorious  circumstances 
attending  the  boyhood  of  our  Lord,  they,  as  honest  witnesses,  would 
certainly  have  told  us  of  them ;  and  had  they  not  been  honest  witnesses, 
they  would — if  none  such  occurred  in  reality — have  most  certainly  in- 
vented them.  But  man's  ways  are  not  as  God's  ways ;  and  because  the 
truth  which,  by  their  very  silence,  the  Evangelists  record,  is  a  revelation 

1  Comp.  Ecclus.  xxxix.  13,  14,  "  Hearken  unto  me,  ye  holy  children,  and  bud  forth  as  a  rose  growing 

by  the  brook  of  the   field  ;    and  give   ye  a  sweet  savor  as  frankincense,  and  flourish  as  a  lily,  and  send 
forth  a  smell,  and  sing  a  song  of  praise." 

2  The  terms  of  Isa.  ix.  i,  2,  show  in  what  estimation  Galilee  was  held.      Keim  also  refers  to  Jos.  Antt. 
xiii.  12,  §  i;  xiv.  9,  §  2. 


68  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

to  us  of  the  ways  of  God,  and  not  of  man,  therefore  it  contradicts  what 
we  should  have  invented  ;  it  disappoints  what,  without  further  enhghten- 
ment,  we  should  have  desired.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  fulfills  the 
ideal  of  ancient  prophecy,  "  He  shall  grow  up  before  him  as  a  tender 
plant,  and  as  a  root  out  of  a  dry  ground;"  and  it  is  in  accordance  with 
subsequent  allusion,  "  He  made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon 
Him  the  form  of  a  servant." 

We  have  only  to  turn  to  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  and  we  shall  find 
how  widely  different  is  the  false  human  ideal  from  the  divine  fact. 
There  we  shall  see  how,  following  their  natural  and  unspiritual  bent,  the 
fabulists  of  Christendom,  whether  heretical  or  orthodox,  surround  Christ's 
boyhood  with  a  blaze  of  miracle,  make  it  portentous,  terror-striking,  un- 
natural, repulsive.  It  is  surely  an  astonishing  proof  that  the  Evangelists 
were  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  telling  how  He  lived  in  whom  God 
was  revealed  to  man,  when  we  gradually  discover  that  no  profane,  no 
irreverent,  even  no  imaginative  hand  can  touch  the  sacred  outlines  of 
that  divine  and  perfect  picture  without  degrading  and  distorting  it. 
Whether  the  Apocryphal  writers  meant  their  legends  to  be  accepted  as 
history  or  as  fiction,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  in  most  cases  they  meant 
to  weave  around  the  brows  of  Christ  a  garland  of  honor.  Yet  how  do 
their  stories  dwarf,  and  dishonor,  and  misinterpret  Him  !  How  infinitely 
superior  is  the  noble  simplicity  of  that  evangelic  silence  to  all  the  the- 
atrical displays  of  childish  and  meaningless  omnipotence  with  which  the 
Protevangelium,  and  the  Pseudo-Matthew,  and  the  Arabic  Gospel  of  the 
Infancy  are  full !  They  meant  to  honor  Christ ;  but  no  invention  can 
honor  Him;  he  who  invents  about  Him  degrades  Him;  he  mixes  the 
weak,  imperfect,  erring  fancies  of  man  with  the  unapproachable  and 
awful  purposes  of  God.  The  boy  Christ  of  the  Gospels  is  simple  and 
sweet,  obedient  and  humble ;  He  is  subject  to  His  parents ;  He  is 
occupied  solely  with  the  quiet  duties  of  His  home  and  of  His  age;  He 
loves  all  men,  and  all  men  love  the  pure,  and  gracious,  and  noble  child. 
Already  He  knows  God  as  His  father,  and  the  favor  of  God  falls  on 
Him  softly  as  the  morning  sunlight,  or  the  dew  of  heaven,  and  plays 
like  an  invisible  aureole  round  His  infantine  and  saintly  brow.  Unseen, 
save  in  the  beauty  of  heaven,  but  yet  covered  with  silver  wings,  and 
with  its  feathers  like  gold,  the  Spirit  of  God  descended  like  a  dove,  and 
rested  from  infancy  upon  the  Holy  Child. 

But  how  different  is  the  boy  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  Apocrypha ! 


THE  BOYHOOD  OF  JESUS.  69 

He  is  mischievous,  petulant,  forward,  revengeful.  Some  of  the  mar- 
vels told  of  Him  are  simply  aimless  and  puerile — as  when  He  carries 
the  spilt  water  in  His  robe ;  or  pulls  the  short  board  to  the  requisite 
length  ;  or  molds  sparrows  of  clay,  and  then  claps  His  hand  to  make 
them  fly ;  or  throws  all  the  cloths  into  the  dyer's  vat,  and  then  draws 
them  out  each  stained  of  the  requisite  color.  But  some  are,  on  the 
contrary,  simply  distasteful  and  inconsiderate,  as  when  He  vexes  and 
shames  and  silences  those  who  wish  to  teach  Him;  or  rebukes  Joseph; 
or  turns  His  playmates  into  kids:  and  others  are  simply  cruel  and 
blasphemous,  as  when  He  strikes  dead  with  a  curse  the  boys  who  offend 
or  run  against  Him,  until  at  last  there  is  a  storm  of  popular  indignation, 
and  Mary  is  afraid  to  let  Him  leave  the  house.  In  a  careful  search 
through  all  these  heavy,  tasteless,  and  frequently  pernicious  fictions,  I  can 
find  but  one  anecdote  in  which  there  is  a  touch  of  feeling,  or  possibility 
of  truth ;  and  this  alone  I  will  quote  because  it  is  at  any  rate  harmless, 
and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  it  may  rest  upon  some  slight  basis  of 
traditional  fact.  It  is  from  the  Arabic  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  and  runs 
as  follows  : ' — 

"  Now  in  the  month  of  Adar,  Jesus  assembled  the  boys  as  if  He 
were  their  king ;  they  strewed  their  garments  on  the  ground,  and  He  sat 
upon  them.  Then  they  put  on  His  head  a  crown  wreathed  of  flowers, 
and,  like  attendants  waiting  upon  a  king,  they  stood  in  order  before  Him 
on  His  right  hand  and  on  His  left.  And  whoever  passed  that  way  the 
boys  took  him  by  force,  crying,  '  Come  hither  and  adore  the  King,  and 
then  proceed  upon  thy  way.'" 

Yet  I  am  not  sure  that  the  sacredness  of  the  evangelic  silence  is 
not  rudely  impaired  even  by  so  simple  a  fancy  as  this :  for  it  was  in 
utter  stillness,  in  prayerfulness,  in  the  quiet  round  of  daily  duties— like 
Moses  in  the  wilderness,  like  David  among  the  sheepfolds,  like  Elijah 
among  the  tents  of  the  Bedouin,  like  Jeremiah  in  his  quiet  home  at 
Anathoth,  like  Amos  in  the  sycamore  groves  of  Tekoa — that  the  boy 
Jesus  prepared  Himself,  amid  a  hallowed  obscurity,  for  His  mighty  work 
on  earth.  His  outward  life  was  the  life  of  all  those  of  His  age,  and 
station,  and  place  of  birth.  He  lived  as  lived  the  other  children  of 
peasant  parents  in  that  quiet  town,  and  in  great  measure  as  they  live 
now.     He  who  has  seen  the  children    of    Nazareth    in    their  red  caftans, 

I  Cap.  41.       I  quote  the  translation  of  Mr.  B.  Harris  Cowper.  whose  admirable  volume  has  placed  the 
Apocryphal  Gospels  within  easy  reach  of  all  readers,  unlearned  as  well  as  learned. 


-JO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  bright  tunics  of  silk  or  cloth,  girded  with  a  many-colored  sash,  and 
sometimes  covered  with  a  loose  outer  jacket  of  white  or  blue — he  who 
has  watched  their  merry  games,  and  heard  their  ringing  laughter  as  they 
wander  about  the  hills  of  their  little  native  vale,  or  play  in  bands  on  the 
hillside  beside  their  sweet  and  abundant  fountain,  may  perhaps  form 
some  conception  of  how  Jesus  looked  and  played  when  He  too  was  a 
child.  And  the  traveler  who  has  followed  any  of  those  children  to  their 
simple  homes,  and  seen  the  scanty  furniture,  the  plain  but  sweet  and 
wholesome  food,  the  uneventful,  happy  patriarchal  life,  may  form  a  vivid 
conception  of  the  manner  in  which  Jesus  lived.  Nothing  can  be  plainer 
than  those  houses,  with  the  doves  sunning  themselves  on  the  white 
roofs,  and  the  vines  wreathing  about  them.  The  mats,  or  carpets,  are 
laid  loose  along  the  walls ;  shoes  and  sandals  are  taken  off  at  the 
threshold  ;  from  the  center  hangs  a  lamp  which  forms  the  only  ornament 
of  the  room ;  in  some  recess  in  the  wall  is  placed  the  wooden  chest, 
painted  with  bright  colors,  which  contains  the  books  or  other  possessions 
of  the  family  ;  on  a  ledge  that  runs  round  the  wall,  within  easy  reach, 
are  neatly  rolled  up  the  gay-colored  quilts,  which  serve  as  beds,  and  on 
the  same  ledge  are  ranged  the  earthen  vessels  for  daily  use ;  near  the 
door  stand  the  large  common  water-jars  of  red  clay,  with  a  few  twigs 
and  green  leaves— often  of  aromatic  shrubs — thrust  into  their  orifices  to 
keep  the  water  cool.  At  meal-time  a  painted  wooden  stool  is  placed  in 
the  center  of  the  apartment,  a  large  tray  is  put  upon  it,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  tray  stands  the  dish  of  rice  and  meat,  or  libbdn,  or  stewed 
fruits,  from  which  all  help  themselves  in  common.  Both  before  and 
after  the  meal  the  servant,  or  the  youngest  member  of  the  family,  pours 
water  over  the  hands  from  a  brazen  ewer  into  a  brazen  bowl.  So  quiet, 
so  simple,  so  humble,  so  uneventful  was  the  outward  life  of  the  family 
of  Nazareth. 

The  reverent  devotion  and  brilliant  fancy  of  the  early  mediaeval 
painters  have  elaborated  a  very  different  picture.  The  gorgeous  pencils 
of  a  Giotto  and  a  Fra  Angelico  have  painted  the  Virgin  and  her  Child 
seated  on  stately  thrones,  upon  floors  of  splendid  mosaic,  under  canopies 
of  blue  and  gold  ;  they  have  robed  them  in  colors  rich  as  the  hues  of 
summer  or  delicate  as  the  flowers  of  spring,  and  fitted  the  edges  of  their 
robes  with  golden  embroidery,  and  clasped  them  with  priceless  gems. 
Far  different  was  the  reality.  When  Joseph  returned  to  Nazareth  he 
knew  well  that  they  were    going    into    seclusion    as  well    as    into    safety ; 


THE  BOYHOOD  OF  JESUS.  7\ 

and  that  the  life  of  the  Virgin  and  the  Holy  Child  would  be  spent,  not 
in  the  full  light  of  notoriety  or  wealth,  but  in  secrecy,'  in  poverty,  and 
in  manual  toil. 

Yet  this  poverty  was  not  pauperism  ;  there  was  nothing  in  it  either 
miserable  or  abject ;  it  was  sweet,  simple,  contented,  happy,  even  joyous. 
Mary,  like  others  of  her  rank,  would  spin,  and  cook  food,  and  go  to  buy 
fruit,  and  evening  by  evening  visit  the  fountain,  still  called  after  her  "  the 
Virgin's  fountain,"  with  her  pitcher  of  earthenware  carried  on  her  shoulder 
or  her  head.  Jesus  would  play,  and  learn,  and  help  His  parents  in  their 
daily  tasks,  and  visit  the  synagogues  on  the  Sabbath  days.  "  It  is  written," 
says  Luther,  "  that  there  was  once  a  pious  godly  bishop,  who  had  often 
earnestly  prayed  that  God  would  manifest  to  him  what  Jesus  had  done 
in  His  youth.  Once  the  bishop  had  a  dream  to  this  effect.  He  seemed 
in  his  sleep  to  see  a  carpenter  working  at  his  trade,  and  beside  him  a 
little  boy  who  was  gathering  up  chips.  Then  came  in  a  maiden  clothed 
in  green,  who  called  them  both  to  come  to  the  meal,  and  set  porridge 
before  them.  All  this  the  bishop  seemed  to  see  in  his  dream,  himself 
standing  behind  the  door  that  he  might  not  be  perceived.  Then  the 
little  boy  began  and  said,  '  Why  does  that  man  stand  there  ?  shall  he 
not  also  eat  with  us  ? '  And  this  so  frightened  the  bishop  that  he 
awoke."  "  Let  this  be  what  it  may,"  adds  Luther,  "  a  true  history  or  a 
fable,  I  none  the  less  believe  that  Christ  in  His  childhood  and  youth 
looked  and  acted  like  other  children,  yet  without  sin,  in  fashion  like  a 
man."" 

St.  Matthew  tells  us,  that  in  the  settlement  of  the  Holy  Family  at 
Nazareth,  was  fulfilled  that  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophets,  "  He  shall 
be  called  a  Nazarene."  It  is  well  known  that  no  such  passage  occurs  in 
any  extant  prophecy.  If  the  name  implied  a  contemptuous  dislike — as 
may  be  inferred  from  the  proverbial  question  of  Nathanael,  "  Can  any 
good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth?"^ — then  St.  Matthew  may  be  sum- 
ming up  in  that  expression  the  various  prophecies  so  little  understood 
by  his  nation,  which  pointed  to  the  Messiah  as  a  man  of  sorrows.  And 
certainly  to  this  day  "Nazarene"  has  continued  to  be  a  term  of  con- 
tempt.    The    Talmudists    always    speak   of   Jesus  as  "Ha-nozeri;"  Julian 

1  John  vii.  3 — 5. 

2  CI.  St.  Bonaventura,  KiV.  Christi,  xii.  "  Fancy  you  see  Him  busied  with  His  parents  in  the  most 
servile  work  of  their  little  dwelling.  Did  He  not  help  them  in  setting  out  the  frugal  board,  arranging  the 
simple  sleeping-rooms,  nay.  and  in  other  yet  humbler  offices  ?" 

3  Perhaps  in  this  question,  and  in  the  citation  of  St.  Matthew,  there  may  be  a  play  upon  the  possible 
derivation  of  the  name  from  Naz6ra,  "despicable." 


72  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

is  said  to  have  expressly  decreed  that  Christians  should  be  called  by  the 
less  honorable  appellation  of  Galileans;  and  to  this  day  the  Christians 
of  Palestine  are  known  by  no  other  title  than  Nusara."  But  the  explan- 
ation which  refers  St.  Matthew's  allusion  to  those  passages  of  prophecy 
in  which  Christ  is  called  "  the  Branch  "  {tiitser)  seems  far  more  probable. 
The  village  may  have  derived  this  name  from  no  other  circumstance 
than  its  abundant  foliage ;  but  the  Old  Testament  is  full  of  proofs 
that  the  Hebrews  attached  immense  and  mystical  importance  to  mere 
resemblances  In  the  sound  of  words.  St.  Matthew,  a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,  would  without  any  hesitation  have  seen  a  prophetic  fitness  In 
Christ's  residence  at  this  town  of  Galilee,  because  Its  name  recalled  the 
title  by  which  He  was  addressed  in  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah.^ 

"Shall  the  Christ  come  out  of  Galilee?"  asked  the  wondering 
people.  "Search  and  look!"  said  the  Rabbis  to  Nicodemus,  "for  out  of 
Galilee  arlseth  no  prophet"  (John  vll.  41,  52).  It  would  not  have  needed 
very  deep  searching  or  looking  to  find  that  these  words  were  ignorant 
or  false ;  for,  not  to  speak  of  Barak  the  deliverer,  and  Elon  the  judge, 
and  Anna  the  prophetess,  three,  If  not  four,  of  the  prophets — and  those 
prophets  of  the  highest  eminence,  Jonah,  Elijah,  Hosea,  and  Nahum — 
had  been  born,  or  had  exercised  much  of  their  ministry,  in  the  precincts 
of  Galllee.3  And  in  spite  of  the  supercilious  contempt  with  which  it  was 
regarded,  the  little  town  of  Nazareth,  situated  as  it  was  In  a  healthy  and 
secluded  valley,  yet  close  upon  the  confines  of  great  nations,  and  in  the 
center  of  a  mixed  population,  was  eminently  fitted  to  be  the  home  of 
our  Saviour's  childhood,  the  scene  of  that  quiet  growth  "in  wisdom,  and 
stature,  and  favor  with  God  and  man."* 

1  In  the  singular,  Nusrany.  On  the  supposed  edict  of  Julian,  see  Gibbon,  ii.  312  (ed.  Milman).  If  we 
ever  passed  a  particularly  ill-conditioned  village  in  Palestine,  my  Mohammedan  dragoman  always  rejoiced 
if  he  could  assure  me  that  the  inhabitants  were  not  Moslem  but  Nusara — which  he  rarely  lost  an  opportunity 
of  doing.     Cf.  Acts  xxviii.  22. 

2  Isa.  xi.  I.      Tsemach,  the  word  used  in  Jer.  xxiii.  5  ;  Zech.  iii.  8,  &c..  also  means  "  Branch." 

3  Jonah  was  of  Gath-hepher  (2  Kings  xiv.  25),  a  town  of  Zebulun  (Josh.  xix.  10.  13);  Hosea  is  said  to 
have  been  of  Issachar,  and  was  a  Northern  prophet ;  Elkosh,  the  birthplace  of  Nahum,  was  piobably  in 
Galilee  (Jer,  ad  Kah.  i.  i);  Elijah's  main  ministry  was  in  Galilee  ;  Elisha  was  of  Abel-meholah,  in  the 
Jordan  valley.  To  get  over  such  flagrant  carelessness  in  the  taunting  question  of  the  Jews,  some  have 
proposed  to  give  a  narrower  significance  to  the  name  Galilee,  and  make  it  mean  only  upper  Galilee,  for 
the  limits  of  which  see  Jos.  B.  J.  iii.  3,  §  l.  Among  other  great  names  connected  with  Galilee,  Keim 
mentions  the  philosopher  Aristobulns(of  Paneas),  the  Scribe  Nithai  ol  Arbela,  Alexander  Jannaus,  Judas 
the  Gaulonile,  and  John  of  Giscala.  A  legend  mentioned  by  Jerome  also  connects  the  family  of  St.  Paul 
with  Giscala. 

4  Luke  ii.  52.     Cf.  Prov.  iii,  4;  Ps,  cxi,  10;  i  Sam.  ii.  26. 


CHAPTER    VI. 


JESUS      IN      THE      TEMPLE. 

"  He   came   to  save  all,  infants,  and    children,  and   boys,  and   youths,  and  older    men  ;  therefore  he 
passed  through  every  age." — Ireneus. 

Ill II.  't^-Q-- 


VEN  as  there  is  one  hemisphere  of  the  lunar 
surface  on  which,  in  its  entirety,  no  human  eye 
has  ever  gazed,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
1  moon's  librations  enable  us  to  conjecture  of  its 
general  character  and  appearance,  so  there  is 
one  large  portion  of  our  Lord's  life  respecting 
which  there  is  no  full  record ;  yet  such  glimpses 
are,  as  it  were,  accorded  to  us  of  its  outer 
edge,  that  from  these  we  are  able  to  understand 
the  nature  of  the  whole. 
It  Again,    when    the    moon    is    in    crescent,    a 

si\  few  bright  points  are  visible  through  the  telescope  upon  its 
unilluminated  part ;  those  bright  points  are  mountain  peaks, 
so  lofty  that  they  catch  the  sunlight.  One  such  point  of 
splendor  and  majesty  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  otherwise 
unknown  region  of  Christ's  youthful  years,  and  it  is  sufficient  to  furnish 
us  with  a  real  insight  into  that  entire  portion  of  His  life.  In  modern 
language  we  should  call  it  an  anecdote  of  the  Saviour's  confirmation. 

The  age  of  twelve  years  was  a  critical  age  for  a  Jewish  boy.  It 
was  the  age  at  which,  according  to  Jewish  legend,  Moses  had  left  the 
house  of  Pharaoh's  daughter ;  and  Samuel  had  heard  the  Voice  which 
summoned  him  to  the  prophetic  office ;  and  Solomon  had  given  the 
judgment  which  first  revealed  his  possession  of  wisdom  ;  and  Josiah  had 
first  dreamed  of  his  great  reform.  At  this  age  a  boy  of  whatever  rank 
was  obliged,  by  the  injunction  of  the  Rabbis  and  the  custom  of  his 
nation,  to  learn  a  trade  for  his  own  support.  At  this  age  he  was  so  far 
emancipated  from  parental-  authority  that  his  parents  could  no  longer  sell 
him  as  a  slave.     At  this  age  he  became  a   ben  hat-torah,  or  "  son  of   the 


74  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Law."  Up  to  this  age  he  was  called  katdn,  or  "little;"  henceforth  he 
was  gadol,  or  "  grown  up,"  and  was  treated  more  as  a  man  ;  henceforth, 
too,  he  began  to  wear  the  tephilltn,  or  "  phylacteries,"  and  was  presented 
by  his  father  in  the  synagogue  on  a  Sabbath,  which  was  called  from  this 
circumstance  the  shabbath  tephilltn.  Nay,  more,  according  to  one  Rab- 
binical treatise,  up  to  this  age  a  boy  only  possessed  the  nephes/i,  or 
animal  life ;  but  henceforth  he  began  to  acquire  the  ruach,  or  spirit, 
which,  if  his  life  were  virtuous,  would  develop,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  into 
the  nishetna,  or  reasonable  soul.' 

This  period,  too — the  completion  of  the  twelfth  year — formed  a 
decisive  epoch  in  a  Jewish  boy's  education.  According  to  Juda  ben 
Tema,  at  five  he  was  to  study  the  Scriptures  (Mikra),  at  ten  the  Mishna, 
at  thirteen  the  Talmud ;  at  eighteen  he  was  to  marry,  at  twenty  to 
acquire  riches,  at  thirty  strength,  at  forty  prudence,  and  so  on  to  the 
end.  Nor  must  we  forget,  in  considering  this  narrative,  that  the  Hebrew 
race,  and,  indeed.  Orientals  generally,  develop  with  a  precocity  unknown 
among  ourselves,  and  that  boys  of  this  age  (as  we  learn  from  Josephus) 
could  and  did  fight  in  battle,  and  that,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the 
race,  it  is,  to  this  day,  regarded  as  a  marriageable  age  among  the  Jews 
of  Palestine  and  Asia  Minor. 

Now  it  was  the  custom  of  the  parents  of  our  Lord  to  visit  Jerusa- 
lem every  year  at  the  feast  of  the  Passover.  Women  were,  indeed,  not 
mentioned  in  the  law  which  required  the  annual  presence  of  all  males  at 
the  three  great  yearly  feasts  of  Passover,  Pentecost,  and  Tabernacles; 
but  Mary,  in  pious  observance  of  the  rule  recommended  by  Hillel,  ac- 
companied her  husband  every  year,  and  on  this  occasion  they  took  with 
them  the  boy  Jesus,  who  was  beginning  to  be  of  an  age  to  assume  the 
responsibilities  of  the  Law.  We  can  easily  imagine  how  powerful  must 
have  been  the  influence  upon  His  human  development  of  this  break  in 
the  still  secluded  life ;  of  this  glimpse  into  the  great  outer  world  ;  of  this 
journey  through  a  land  of  which  every  hill  and  every  village  teemed 
with  sacred  memories  ;  of  this  first  visit  to  that  Temple  of  His  Father 
which  was  associated  with  so  many  mighty  events  in  the  story  of  the 
kings  His  ancestors  and  the  prophets  His  forerunners. 

I  This  incident,  preserved  for  us  by  St.  Luke,  is  of  inestimable  value  as  discountenancing  that  too- 
prevalent  ApoUinarian  heresy  which  denies  to  Christ  the  possession  of  a  human  soul  and  gives  Him  only 
the  ■•  Word  "  in  lieu  of  it.  It  is  as  much  the  object  of  the  Gospels  to  reveal  to  us  that  He  vfas  "  perfectly" 
man,  as  that  He  was  "  truly"  God.  It  should  be  observed  that  the  word  used  in  Luke  ii.  40  is  "  being 
filled,"  implying  a  course  of  growth  in  wisdom,  not  "  having  been  filled,"  implying  a  finished  and  permanent 
mult. 


JESUS  IN  THE  TEMPLE.  75 

Nazareth  lies  from  Jerusalem  at  a  distance  of  about  eighty  miles, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  intense  and  jealous  hostility  of  the  Samaritans,  it  is 
probable  that,  the  vast  caravan  of  Galilean  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  the 
feast  would  go  by  the  most  direct  and  the  least  dangerous  route,  which 
lay  through  the  old  tribal  territories  of  Manasseh  and  Ephraim.'  Leav- 
ing the  garland  of  hills  which  encircle  the  little  town  in  a  manner  com- 
pared by  St.  Jerome  to  the  petals  of  an  opening  rose,  they  would 
descend  the  narrow  flower-bordered  limestone  path  into  the  great  plain 
of  Jezreel.  As  the  Passover  falls  at  the  end  of  March  and  the  beginning 
of  April,  the  country  would  be  wearing  its  brightest,  greenest,  loveliest 
aspect,  and  the  edges  of  the  vast  cornfields  on  either  side  of  the  road 
through  the  vast  plain  would  be  woven,  like  the  High  Priest's  robe,  with 
the  blue  and  purple  and  scarlet  of  innumerable  flowers.  Over  the 
streams  of  that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon — past  Shunem,  recalling 
memories  of  Elisha  as  it  lay  nestling  on  the  southern  slopes  of  Little 
Hermon — past  royal  Jezreel,  with  the  sculptured  sarcophagi  that  alone 
bore  witness  to  its  departed  splendor — past  the  picturesque  outline  of 
bare  and  dewless  Gilboa — past  sandy  Taanach,  with  its  memories  of 
Sisera  and  Barak — past  Megiddo,  where  He  might  first  have  seen  the 
helmets  and  broadswords  and  eagles  of  the  Roman  legionary — the  road 
would  lie  to  En-Gannim,  where,  beside  the  fountains,  and  amid  the 
shady  and  lovely  gardens  which  still  mark  the  spot,  they  would  probably 
have  halted  for  their  first  night's  rest.  Next  day  they  would  begin  to 
ascend  the  mountains  of  Manasseh,  and  crossing  the  "  Drowning 
Meadow,"  as  it  is  now  called,  and  winding  though  the  rich  fig-yards 
and  olive-groves  that  fill  the  valleys  round  El-Jib,'  they  would  leave 
upon  the  right  the  hills  which,  in  their  glorious  beauty,  formed  the 
"  crown  of  pride "  of  which  Samaria  boasted,  but  which,  as  the  prophet 
foretold,  should  be  as  a  "fading  flower."  Their  second  encampment 
would  probably  be  near  Jacob's  well,  in  the  beautiful  and  fertile  valley 
between  Ebal  and  Gerizim,  and  not  far  from  the  ancient  Shechem.  A 
third  day's  journey  would  take  them  past  Shiloh  and  Gibeah  of  Saul 
and    Bethel    to  Beeroth ;    and    from    the    pleasant  springs   by  which    they 

1  Two  other  routes  were  open  to  them  :  one  by  the  sea-coast,  past  Carmel  and  Caesarea  to  Joppa,  and 
so  across  the  plain  to  Jerusalem  ;  the  other  to  Tiberias,  and  then  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Jordan  to 
the  fords  of  Bethabara.  Both  of  these  routes  were  longer,  less  frequented,  and  more  liable  to  the  attacks 
of  roving  bands. 

2  Not,  of  course,  Gibeon,  but  a  village  of  Manasseh  which  lies  directly  on  the  line  qf  route,  but  is  not 
mentioned  in  Scripture. 


76  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

would  there  encamp  a  short  and  easy  stage  would  bring  them  in  sight 
of  the  towers  of  Jerusalem.  The  profane  plumage  of  the  eagle  wings 
of  Rome  was  already  overshadowing  the  Holy  City ;  but,  towering 
above  its  walls,'  still  glittered  the  great  Temple,  with  its  gilded  roofs 
and  marble  colonnades,  and  it  was  still  the  Jerusalem  of  which  royal 
David  sang,  and  for  which  the  exiles  by  the  waters  of  Babylon  had 
yearned  with  such  deep  emotion,  when  they  took  their  harps  from  the 
willows  to  wail  the  remorseful  dirge  that  they  would  remember  her  until 
their  right  hands  forgot  their  cunning.  Who  shall  fathom  the  unspeak- 
able emotion  with  which  the  boy  Jesus  gazed  on  that  memorable  and 
never-to-be-forgotten  scene  ? 

The  numbers  who  flocked  to  the  Passover  from  every  region  of  the 
East  might  be  counted  by  tens  of  thousands."  There  were  far  more 
than  the  city  could  by  any  possibility  accorhmodate  ;  and  then,  as  now  at 
Easter-time,  vast  numbers  of  the  pilgrims  reared  for  themselves  the  little 
succdth — booths  of  mat,  and  wicker-work,  and  interwoven  leaves,  which 
provided  them  with  a  sufficient  shelter  for  all  their  wants.  The  feast 
lasted  for  a  week — a  week,  probably,  of  deep  happiness  an«l  strong 
religious  emotion ;  and  then,  with  their  mules,  and  horses,  and  asses,  and 
camels,  the  vast  caravan  would  clear  away  their  temporary-  dwelling-places, 
and  start  on  the  homeward  journey.  The  road  was  enlivened  by  mirth 
and  music  They  often  beguiled  the  tedium  of  travel  with  the  sound 
of  drums  and  timbrels,  and  paused  to  refresh  themselves  with  dates,  or 
melons,  or  cucumbers,  and  water  drawn  in  skins  and  waterpots  from 
ever)-  springing  well  and  running  stream.  The  veiled  women  and  the 
stately  old  men  are  generally  mounted,  while  their  sons  or  brothers,  with 
long  sticks  in  their  hands,  lead  along  by  a  string  their  beasts  of  burden. 
The  boys  and  children  sometimes  walk  and  play  by  the  side  of  their 
parents,  and  sometimes,  when  tired,  get  a  lift  on  horse  or  mule.  I  can 
find  no  trace  of  the  assertion  or  conjecture'  that  the  w^omen,  and  boys, 
and  men  formed  three  separate  portions  of  the  caravan,  and  such  is 
certainly    not    the    custom    in  modern  times.       But,    in    any    case,  among 

1  Josepbus  {Bell.  JuS.  ii.  i,  §  3)  calls  them  "  an  innumerable  multitude  ;  "  and  in  ri.  9,  §  3,  be  mentions 
the  venr  remarkable  fact  that  Cestius,  in  order  to  give  Nero  some  notion  of  the  power  of  the  city,  had 
asked  the  chief  priests  to  count  the  number  of  paschal  lambs  offered  at  the  Passover,  and  found  that  there 
were  no  less  than  256,500  !  which  (allowing  a  general  average  of  rather  more  than  ten  to  each  lamb, 
whereas  there  were  sometimes  as  manr  as  twenty)  would  make  the  number  of  worshippers  no  less  than 
2,700,200,  exclusive  of  all  foreigners,  and  all  who  were  ceremonially  unclean,  &c.  The  assertion  that 
Agrippa  reckoned  12,000,000  worshippers  by  counting  the  kidneys  of  the  lambs  offered,  is  one  of  the  usual 
Rabbinic  exaggerations. 

2  Which  first  occurs,  I  be'-eve.  in  Bede. 


JESUS  IN  THE  TEMPLE.  ^^ 

such    a    sea    of    human  beings,  how    easy  would  it  be  to  lose  one  young 
boy  ! ' 

The  Apocryphal  legend  says  that  on  the  journey  from  Jerusalem  the 
boy  Jesus  left  the  caravan  and  returned  to  the  Holy  City.'  With  far 
greater  truth  and  simplicity  St.  Luke  informs  us  that — absorbed  in  all 
probability  in  the  rush  of  new  and  elevating  emotions — He  "  tarried 
behind  in  Jerusalem."  A  day  elapsed  before  the  parents'  discovered 
their  loss ;  this  they  would  not  do  until  they  arrived  at  the  place  of 
evening  rendezvous,  and  all  day  long  they  would  be  free  from  all 
anxiety,  supposing  that  the  Boy  was  with  some  other  group  of  friends  or 
relatives  in  that  long  caravan.  But  when  evening  came,  and  their  dili- 
gent inquiries  led  to  no  trace  of  Him,  they  would  learn  the  bitter  fact 
that  He  was  altogether  missing  from  the  band  of  returning  pilgrims. 
The  next  day,  in  alarm  and  anguish — perhaps,  too,  with  some  sense  of 
self-reproach  that  they  had  not  been  more  faithful  to  their  sacred 
charge — they  retraced  their  steps  to  Jerusalem.  The  country  was  in  a 
wild  and  unsettled  state.  The  ethnarch  Archelaus,  after  ten  years  of  a 
cruel  and  disgraceful  reign,  had  recently  been  deposed  by  the  Emperor, 
and  banished  to  Vienne,  in  Gaul.  The  Romans  had  annexed  the  prov- 
ince over  which  he  had  ruled,  and  the  introduction  of  their  system  of 
taxation  by  Coponius,  the  first  procurator,  had  kindled  the  revolt  which, 
under  Judas  of  Gamala  and  the  Pharisee  Sadoc,  wrapped  the  whole 
country  in  a  storm  of  sword  and  flame.^  This  disturbed  state  of  the 
political  horizon  would  not  only  render  their  journey  more  difficult  when 
once  they  had  left  the  shelter  of  the  caravan,  but  would  also  intensify 
their  dread  lest,  among  all  the  wild  elements  of  warring  nationalities 
which  at  such  a  moment  were  assembled  about  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
their  Son  should  have  met  with  harm.  Truly  on  that  day  of  miserv^  and 
dread  must  the  sword  have  pierced  through  the  virgin  mother's  heart  ! 

1  The  incident  constantly  occurs  to  this  day  in  the  annual  expeditions  of  the  pilgrims  to  bathe  in  the 
fords  of  Jordan. 

2  Lange  here  particularizes  too  much,  both  in  assuming  that  there  was  a  separate  company  of  boys  ; 
and  that  "  the  Child — He  knew  not  how — fell  out  of  the  train  of  boys,  and  went  on,  led  by  the  Spirit, 
meditating,  longing,  attracted,  and  carried  along  bj-  His  own  infinite  thoughts  until  He  stood  in  the 
Temple,  in  the  midst  of  the  Rabbis." 

3  The  proper  reading  of  Luke  ii.  43  is  almost  certainly  •'  his  parents,"  which  has,  for  dogmatic  rea- 
sons, been  dishonestly  altered  into  "Joseph  and  his  mother."  The  place  where  they  first  halted  might 
rery  well  be,  as  tradition  says.  El  Bireh,  the  ancient  Beeroth,  about  six  miles  north  of  Jerusalem. 

4  Luke  ii.  44,  "were  carefully  seeking." 

5  The  insurrection  of  Judas  was  A.D.  6 — i.e..  only  two  years  before  this  event.  A.U.C.  750  (B.C  4) 
seems  to  me  the  almost  certain  date  of  the  Nativity. 


78  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Neither  on  that  day,  nor  during  the  night,  nor  throughout  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  third  day,  did  they  discover  Him,  till  at  last  they 
found  Him  in  the  place  which,  strangely  enough,  seems  to  have  been 
the  last  where  they  searched  for  Him — in  the  Temple,  "sitting  in  the 
midst  of  the  doctors,  both  hearing  them  and  asking  them  questions ;  and 
all  that  heard  Him  were  astonished   at    His  understanding  and  answers." 

The  last  expression,  no  less  than  the  entire  context,  and  all  that  we 
know  of  the  character  of  Jesus  and  the  nature  of  the  circumstances, 
shows  that  the  Boy  was  there  to  inquire  and  learn — not,  as  the  Arabic 
Gospel  of  the  Infancy  represents  it,  to  cross-examine  the  doctors  "each 
in  turn  " — not  to  expound  the  number  of  the  spheres  and  celestial  bodies, 
and  their  natures  and  operations — still  less  to  "  explain  physics  and 
metaphysics,  hyperphysics  ajid  hypophysics "  (!)  All  these  are  but  the 
ApoUinarian  fictions  of  those  who  preferred  their  own  fancies  to  the  simple 
truthfulness  with  which  the  Evangelist  lets  us  see  that  Jesus,  like  other 
children,  grew  up  in  gradual  knowledge,  consistently  with  the  natural 
course  of  human  development.  He  was  there,  as  St.  Luke  shows  us,  in 
all  humility  and  reverence  to  His  elders,  as  an  eager-hearted  and  gifted 
learner,  whose  enthusiasm  kindled  their  admiration,  and  whose  bearing  won 
their  esteem  and  love.  All  tinge  of  arrogance  and  forwardness  was  utterly 
alien  to  His  character,  which,  from  His  sweet  childhood  upward,  was 
meek  and  lowly  of  heart.  Among  those  present  may  have  been — white 
with  the  snows  of  well  nigh  a  hundred  years — the  great  Hillel,  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Mas6rah,  whom  the  Jews  almost  reverence  as  a 
second  Moses  ;  and  his  son,  the  Rabban  Simeon,  who  thought  so  highly 
of  silence ;  and  his  grandson,  the  refined  and  liberal  Gamaliel ;  and 
Shammai,  his  great  rival,  a  teacher  who  numbered  a  still  vaster  host  of 
disciples;  and  Hanan,  or  Annas,  son  of  Seth,  His  future  judge;  and 
Boethus,  the  father-in-law  of  Herod  ;  and  Babha  Ben  Butah,  whose  eyes 
Herod  had  put  out ;  and  Nechaniah  Ben  Hiskanah,  so  celebrated  for  his 
victorious  prayers ;  and  Johanan  Ben  Zacchai,  who  predicted  the  de- 
struction of  the  Temple ;  and  the  wealthy  Joseph  of  Arimathea ;  and 
the  timid  but  earnest  Nicodemus ;  and  the  youthful  Jonathan  Ben 
Uzziel,  who  subsequently  wrote  the  celebrated  Chaldee  paraphrase,  and 
was  held  by  his  contemporaries  in  boundless  honor.'     But  though  none 

I  Sepp,  Life  of  Jesus,  i.  §  17  ;  but  I  do  not  pledge  myself  to  the  exactitude  of  his  conjecture  in  this 
enumeration.  For  some  further  allusions  to  these  Rabbis  with  Talmudic  references  to  the  traditions  about 
them,  see  Etheridge's  Hebrew  Literature,  p.  38.  In  a  blasphemous  Jewish  book,  the  ToldSth  J:shiHyi\i\c\\ 
is  not  older  than   the  thirteenth   century,   though  V'oltaire  supposed   it  to  belong  to  the  first),  Hillei  and 


JESUS  IN  THE  TEMPLE.  79 

of  these  might  conjecture  Who  was  before  them — and  though  hardly  one 
of  them  lived  to  believe  on  Him,  and  some  to  oppose  Him  in  years  to 
come — which  of  them  all  would  not  have  been  charmed  and  astonished 
at  a  glorious  and  noble-hearted  boy,  in  all  the  early  beauty  of  His  life, 
who,  though  He  had  never  learned  in  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis,  yet 
showed  so  marvelous  a  wisdom,  and  so  deep  a  knowledge  in  all  things 
Divine  ?' 

Here  then — perhaps  in  the  famous  Lishcath  haggazzith,  or  "  Hall  of 
Squares" — perhaps  in  the  Chanujdth,  or  "Halls  of  Purchase,"  or  in  one 
of  the  spacious  chambers  assigned  to  purposes  of  teaching  which  adjoined 
the  Court  of  the  Gentiles — seated,  but  doubtless  at  the  feet  of  His 
teachers,  on  the  many-colored  mosaic  which  formed  the  floor,  Joseph 
and  Mary  found  the  Divine  Boy.  Filled  with  that  almost  adoring  spirit 
of  reverence  for  the  great  priests  and  religious  teachers  of  their  day 
which  characterized  at  this  period  the  simple  and  pious  Galileans,  they 
were  awe-struck  to  find  Him,  calm  and  happy,  in  so  august  a  presence. 
They  might,  indeed,  have  known  that  He  was  wiser  than  His  teachers, 
and  transcendently  more  great ;  but  hitherto  they  had  only  known  Him 
as  the  silent,  sweet,  obedient  Child,  and  perhaps  the  incessant  contact  of 
daily  life  had  blunted  the  sense  of  His  awful  origin.  Yet  it  is  Mary,  not 
Joseph,  who  alone  ventures  to  address  Him  in  the  language  of  tender 
reproach.  "My  child,  why  dost  Thou  treat  us  thus?  see,  thy  father  and 
I  were  seeking  Thee  with  aching  hearts."  And  then  follows  His  answer, 
so  touching  in  its  innocent  simplicity,  so  unfathomable  in  its  depth  of 
consciousness,  so  infinitely  memorable  as  furnishing  us  with  the  first 
recorded  words   of  the  Lord  Jesus  : 

"  Why  is  it  that  ye  were  seeking  me  ?     Did  ye  not  know  that  I  must 
be  about  my    Father  s  business  ?  "  " 

This    answer,    so    divinely    natural,    so    sublimely    noble,    bears    upon 

Shammai  are  represented  as  having  reproved  Jesus  for  having  come  into  the  Temple  with  His  head  un- 
covered. Nothing  whatever  new  or  true  respecting  Jesus  is  to  be  learnt  from  the  Talmud,  and  least  of 
all  from  this  sickening  and  worthless  piece  of  blasphemy,  which  he  who  wills  may  read  in  Wagenseil's 
Tela  Ignea  Satanat,  1 68 1. 

1  Incidents  somewhat  similar  in  their  external  circumstances  were  by  no  means  unknown.  They  are 
narrated  of  R.  Eliezer  Ben  Azaria,  a  descendant  in  the  tenth  generation  of  Ezra  ;  and  of  R.  Ashe,  the  first 
compiler  of  the  Babylonian  Talmud.  Josephus  ( KiVa,  2),  with  the  imperturbable  egotism  and  naive  self- 
complacency  which  characterized  him,  narrates  how,  when  he  was  about  fourteen  years  of  age,  the  chief 
priests  and  Rabbis  at  Jerusalem  frequently  visited  him  to  hear  the  understanding  with  which  he  answered 
the  most  difficult  questions  on  the  hidden  meaning  of  the  Law. 

2  Luke  ii.  49.  It  might  mean  "in  my  father's  house;"  but  the  other  rendering  is  wider  and  better. 
Cf.  I  Tim.  iv.  15;  Gen.  xli.  51,  LXX. 


CHRIST   IN  THE   TEMPLE.— Luke  ii.  46. 


CHAPTER   VII. 


THE    HOME    AT    NAZARETH. 


•r'W^ 


"  Was  not  our  Lord  a  little  child, 
Taught  by  degrees  to  pray  ? 
By  father  dear  and  mother  mild 
Instructed  day  by  day?" — Keble. 


UCH,  then,  is  the  "solitary  floweret  out  of  the 
wonderful  inclosed  garden  of  the  thirty  years, 
plucked  precisely  there  where  the  swollen  bud, 
at  a  disti)ictive  crisis,  burst  into   flower." 

But  if  of  the  first  twelve  years  of  His 
human  life  we  have  only  this  single  anecdote, 
of  the  next  eighteen  years  of  His  life  we 
possess  no  record  whatever,  save  such  as  is 
implied  in   a  single  word. 

That  word    occurs  in    Mark  vi.   3  :    "Is  not 
this  the  carpe7tter  ?  "  ' 

We  may  be  indeed  thankful  that  the  word  remains, 
for  it  is  full  of  meaning,  and  has  exercised  a  very  noble 
and  blessed  influence  over  the  fortunes  of  mankind.  It  has 
tended  to  console  and  sanctify  the  estate  of  poverty ;  to  ennoble 
the  duty  of  labor;  to  elevate  the  entire  conception  of  manhood,  as  of  a 
condition  which  in  itself  alone,  and  apart  from  every  adventitious  cir- 
cumstance,  has  its  own  grandeur  and  dignity  in  the  sight  of  God. 

I.   It  shows,  for  instance,  that  not  only  during  the  three  years  of  His 

I  It  is,  no  doubt,  on  dogmatical  grounds  that  this  was  altered  into  "  the  son  of  the  carpenter"  in  the 
later  MSS.,  though  not  in  a  single  uncial.  Some  were  offended  that  the  Lord  of  All  should  have  worked 
in  the  shop  of  a  poor  artisan  ;  but  how  alien  to  the  true  spirit  of  Chistianity  is  this  feeling  of  offense  1 
Origen,  indeed,  says  that  nowhere  in  the  Gospels  is  Jesus  himself  called  a  carpenter  ;  but  this  is  probab/y 
a  mere  slip  of  memory,  or  may  only  prove  how  early  the  Christians  grew  ashamed  of  their  Divine  Master's 
condescension,  and  how  greatly  they  needed  the  lessons  which  it  involves.  That  even  "the  carpenter'a 
son  "  became  a  term  of  reproach  among  the  Gentiles,  is  clear  from  the  story  of  Libanius'  question  to  a 
Christian  during  Julian's  e.\pedition  into  Persia,  "What  is  the  Carpenter's  Son  doing  now?"  The 
Christian  answered,  "  He  is  making  a  coffin  ;"  and  soon  came  the  news  of  Julian's  death  The  omission 
of  Joseph's  name  in  Mark  vi.  3  has  been  universally  accepted  as  an  indication  that  he  was  dead  ; 
otherwise  we  might  suppose  that  something  contemptuous  was  intended  by  only  mentioning  the 
mother's  name 


82     .  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

ministry,  but  throughout  the  whole  of  His  hfe,  our  Lord  was  poor.  In 
the  cities  the  carpenters  would  be  Greeks,  and  skilled  workmen  ;  the 
carpenter  of  a  provincial  village — and,  if  tradition  be  true,  Joseph  was 
*'  not  very  skillful " — can  only  have  held  a  very  humble  position,  and 
secured  a  very  moderate  competence.'  In  all  ages  there  has  been  an 
exaggerated  desire  for  wealth  ;  an  exaggerated  admiration  for  those  who 
possess  it ;  an  exaggerated  belief  of  its  influence  in  producing  or 
increasing  the  happiness  of  life ;  and  from  these  errors  a  flood  of  cares 
and  jealousies  and  meannesses  have  devastated  the  life  of  man.  And 
therefore  Jesus  chose  voluntarily  "the  low  estate  of  the  poor" — not, 
indeed,  an  absorbing,  degrading,  grinding  poverty,  which  is  always  rare, 
and  almost  always  remediable,  but  that  commonest  lot  of  honest 
poverty,  which,  though  it  necessitates  self-denial,  can  provide  with  ease 
for  all  the  necessaries  of  a  simple  life.  The  Iduma^an  dynasty  that  had 
usurped  the  throne  of  David  might  indulge  in  the  gilded  vices  of  a 
corrupt  Hellenism,  and  display  the  gorgeous  gluttonies  of  a  decaying 
civilization  ;  but  He  who  came  to  be  the  friend  and  the  Saviour,  no 
less  than  the  King  of  All,  sanctioned  the  purer,  better,  simpler  tradi- 
tions and  customs  of  His  nation,  and  chose  the  condition  in  which  the 
vast  majority  of  mankind  have  ever,  and  must  ever  live. 

2.  Again,  there  has  ever  been,  in  the  unenlightened  mind,  a  love  of 
idleness ;  a  tendency  to  regard  it  as  a  stamp  of  aristocracy ;  a  desire  to 
delegate  labor  to  the  lower  and  weaker,  and  to  brand  it  with  the  stigma 
of  inferiority  and  contempt."  But  our  Lord  wished  to  show  that  labor 
is  a  pure  and  a  noble  thing ;  it  is  the  salt  of  life ;  it  is  the  girdle 
of  manliness ;  it  saves  the  body  from  effeminate  languor,  and  the  soul 
from  polluting  thoughts.  And  therefore  Christ  labored,  working  with 
His  own  hands,  and  fashioned  plows  and  yokes  for  those  who  needed 
them.  The  very  scoff  of  Celsus  against  the  possibility  that  He  should 
have  been    a    carpenter  who    came    to  save    the    world,  shows  how  vastly 

1  Unfortunately,  Pagan   writers  do  not  add  one  single  fact  to  our  knowledge  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 

2  To  the  Greeks  and  Romans  all  mechanical  trade  was  mean,  vulgar,  contemptible,  and  was  there- 
fore left  to  slaves.  The  Jews,  with  a  truer  and  nobler  wisdom,  enacted  that  every  boy  should  learn  a 
trade,  and  said  with  R.  Juda  b.  Ilai,  "  the  wise,"  that  "  labor  honors  the  laborer."  Saul  was  a  tent-maker. 
Up  to  the  age  of  forty,  R.  Johanan.  son  of  Zakkai,  afterwards  president  of  the  Sanhedrin,  was,  like 
Mahomet,  a  merchant  ;  the  Rabbis  Juda  and  Menahem  were  bakers;  R.  Eliezer,  supreme  president  of  the 
schools  of  Alexandria,  was  a  smith  ;  R.  Ismael,  a  needle-maker  ;  R.  Joza  Ben  Chalaphta,  a  tanner.  The 
Rabbis  even  assumed  and  rejoiced  in  the  titles  of  R.  Johanan,  the  shoemaker  ;  R.  Simon,  the  weaver, 
&c.  Labor  and  learning  were,  in  their  eyes,  good  antidotes  against  sinful  thoughts.  Even  the  Rabbis, 
however,  were  not  tar  enough  advanced  to  honor  labor  withcut  learning,  and.  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
they  spoke  contemptuously  of  uneducated  artisans  and  common  tillers  of  the  soil. 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  83 

the  world  has  gained  from  this  very  circumstance — how  gracious  and 
how  fitting  was  the  example  of  such  humility  in  One  whose  work  it  was 
to  regenerate  society,  and  to  make  all  things  new. 

3.  Once  more,  from  this  long  silence,  from  this  deep  obscurity,  from 
this  monotonous  routine  of  an  unrecorded  and  uneventful  life,  we  were 
meant  to  learn  that  our  real  existence  in  the  sight  of  God  consists  in 
the  inner  and  not  in  the  outer  life.  The  world  hardly  attaches  any  sig- 
nificance to  any  life  except  those  of  its  heroes  and  benefactors,  its  mighty 
intellects,  or  its  splendid  conquerors.  But  these  are,  and  must  ever  be, 
the  few.  One  raindrop  of  myriads  falling  on  moor,  or  desert,  or  moun- 
tain— one  snowflake  out  of  myriads  melting  into  the  immeasurable  sea — - 
is,  and  must  be,  for  most  men  the  symbol  of  their  ordinary  lives.  They 
die,  and  barely  have  they  died,  when  they  are  forgotten  ;  a  few  years 
pass,  and  the  creeping  lichens  eat  away  the  letters  of  their  names  upon 
the  churchyard  stone  ;  but  even  if  those  crumbling  letters  were  still  de- 
cipherable, they  would  recall  no  memory  to  those  who  stand  upon  their 
graves.  Even  common  and  ordinary  men  are  very  apt  to  think  them- 
selves of  much  importance  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  not  even  the  greatest 
man  is  in  any  degree  necessary,  and  after  a  very  short    space   of   time — 

"  His  place,  in  all  the  pomp  that  fills 
The  circuit  of  the  summer  hills, 
Is  that  his  grave  is  green." 

4.  A  relative  insignificance,  then,  is,  and  must  be  the  destined  lot 
of  the  immense  majority,  and  many  a  man  might  hence  be  led  to  think, 
that  since  he  fills  so  small  a  space— since,  for  the  vast  masses  of  man- 
kind, he  is  of  as  little  importance  as  the  ephemerid  which  buzzes  out  its 
little  hour  in  the  summer  noon — there  is  nothing  better  than  to  eat,  and 
drink,  and  die.  But  Christ  came  to  convince  us  that  a  relative  insig- 
nificance may  be  an  absolute  importance.'  He  came  to  teach  that  con- 
tinual excitement,  prominent  action,  distinguished  services,  brilliant 
success,  are  no  essential  elements  of  true  and  noble  life,  and  that 
myriads  of  the  beloved  of  God  are  to  be  found  among  the  insignificant 
and  the  obscure.  "Si  vis  divinus  esse,  late  ut  Deus"  is  the  encouraging, 
consoling,  ennobling  lesson  of  those  voiceless  years.  The  calmest  and 
most  unknown  lot  is  often  the  happiest,  and  we  may  safely  infer  that 
these  years  in  the  home  and  trade  of  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  were 
happy  years  in  our  Saviour's  life.     Often,   even    in    His   later  days,  it   is 

I  "We  are  greater  than  we  know." — Wordsworth. 


84  THE  PRINCE  UF  CiLORY. 

clear  that  His  words  are  the  words  of  one  who  rejoiced  in  spirit;  they 
are  words  which  seem  to  flow  from  the  full  river  of  an  abounding  happi- 
ness. But  what  must  that  happiness  have  been  in  those  earlier  days, 
before  the  storms  of  righteous  anger  had  agitated  His  unrufifled  soul,  or 
His  heart  burned  hot  with  terrible  indignation  against  the  sins  and 
hypocrisies  of  men  ?  "  Heaven"  as  even  a  Confucius  could  tell  us, 
"  means  principle  ;"  and  if  at  all  times  innocence  be  the  only  happiness, 
how  great  must  have  been  the  happiness  of  a  sinless  childhood  !  "  Youth," 
says  the  poet-preacher,  "  danceth  like  a  bubble,  nimble  and  gay,  and 
shineth  like  a  dove's  neck,  or  the  image  of  a  rainbow  which  hath  no 
substance,  and  whose  very  image  and  colors  are  fantastical."  And  if 
this  description  be  true  of  even  a  careless  youth,  with  what  transcend- 
ently  deeper  force  must  it  apply  to  the  innocent,  the  sinless,  the  perfect 
youth  of  Christ!  In  the  case  of  many  myriads,  and  assuredly  not  least 
in  the  case  of  the  saints  of  God,  a  sorrowful  and  stormy  manhood  has 
often  been  preceded  by  a  calm  and  rosy  dawn. 

5.  And  while  they  were  occupied  manually,  we  have  positive  evidence 
that  these  years  were  not  neglected  intellectually.  No  importance  can 
be  attached  to  the  clumsy  stories  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  but  it  is 
possible  that  some  religious  and  simple  instruction  may  have  been  given 
to  the  little  Nazarenes  by  the  sophertm,  or  other  attendants  of  the 
synagogue;'  and  here  our  Lord,  who  was  made  like  unto  us  in  all 
things,  may  have  learnt,  as  other  children  learnt,  the  elements  of  human 
learning.  But  it  is,  perhaps,  more  probable  that  Jesus  received  His 
early  teaching  at  home,  and  in  accordance  with  the  injunctions  of  the 
Law  (Deut.  xi.  19),  from  His  father.  He  would,  at  any  rate,  have  often 
heard  in  the  daily  prayers  of  the  synagogue  all  which  the  elders  of  the 
place  could  teach  respecting  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  That  He  had 
not  been  to  Jerusalem,  for  purposes  of  instruction,  and  had  not  fre- 
quented any  of  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis,  is  certain  from  the  indignant 
questions  of  jealous  enemies,  "  From  whence  hath  this  man  these  things?" 
"How  knoweth  this  man  letters,  having  never  learned?"  There  breathes 
throughout  these  questions  the  Rabbinic  spirit  of  insolent  contempt  for 
the  a77i  ha-aretz  or  illiterate  countryman.  The  stereotyped  intelligence  of 
the  n-ation,  accustomed,  if   I   may  use  the  expression,  to  that  mummified 

1  The  Talmud  certainly  proves  their  later  existence,  and  that  the  sopherim  and  chaianim  of  the 
synagogues  acted  as  private  teachers  of  the  young.  But  the  chazzan  of  our  Lord's  day  was  in  a  much 
humbler  position  than  was  the  case  later.  The  regular  foundation  of  schools  for  in/ants  is  said  to  have 
f>een  due  to  Jesus  the  son  of  Gamaliel  i. 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  85 

form  of  a  dead  religion  which  had  been  embalmed  by  the  Oral  Law, 
was  incapable  of  appreciating  the  divine  originality  of  a  wisdom  learnt 
from  God  alone.  They  could  not  get  beyond  the  sententious  error  of 
the  son  of  Sirach,  that  "  the  wisdom  of  the  learned  man  cometh  by 
opportunity  of  leisure."  Had  Jesus  received  the  slightest  tincture  of 
their  technical  training  He  would  have  been  less,  not  more,  effectually 
armed  for  putting  to  shame  the  supercilious  exclusiveness  of  their  narrow 
erudition. 

6.  And  this  testimony  of  His  enemies  furnishes  us  with  a  convincing 
and  fortunate  proof  that  His  teaching  was  not,  as  some  would  insinu- 
ate, a  mere  eclectic  system  borrowed  from  the  various  sects  and  teachers 
of  His  "times.  It  is  certain  that  He  was  never  enrolled  among  the 
scholars  of  those  Scribes '  who  made  it  their  main  business  to  teach 
the  traditions  of  the  fathers.  Although  schools  in  great  towns  had  been 
founded  eighty  years  before,  by  Simon  Ben  Shatach,  yet  there  could 
have  been  no  Beth  Midrash  or  Beth  Rabban,  no  "vineyard"  or  "array" 
at  despised  and  simple  Nazareth.'  And  from  whom  could  Jesus  have 
borrowed? — From  Oriental  Gymnosophists  or  Greek  Philosophers?  No 
one,  in  these  days,  ventures  to  advance  so  wild  a  proposition. — From 
the  Pharisees?  The  very  foundations  of  their  system,  the  very  idea  of 
their  religion,  was  irreconcilably  alien  from  all  that  He  revealed. — From 
the  Sadducees?  Their  epicurean  insouciance,  their  "expediency"  politics, 
their  shallow  rationalism,  their  polished  sloth,  were  even  more  repugnant 
to  true  Christianity,  than  they  were  to  sincere  Judaism. — From  the 
Essenes?  They  were  an  exclusive,  ascetic,  and  isolated  community,  with 
whose  discouragement  of  marriage,  and  withdrawal  from  action,  the 
Gospels  have  no  sympathy,  and  to  whom  our  Lord  never  alluded,  unless 
it  be  in  those  passages  where  He  reprobates  those  who  abstain  from 
anointing  themselves  when  they  fast,  and  who  hide  their  candle  under  a 
bushel. — From  Philo,  and  the  Alexandrian  Jews  ?  Philo  was  indeed  a 
good    man,    and    a    great    thinker,    and    a    contemporary  of   Christ ;  ^  but 

1  Jos.  Antt.  XV.  10,  §  5.     Sometimes  an  educated  slave  acted  as  home-tutor. 

2  '•  Vineyard,"  "  array,"  and  other  similar  names,  were  given  by  the  Jews  to  their  schools. 

3  Philo  was  probably  born  B.C.  20,  and  lived  till  about  A.D.  50.  As  we  know  that  he  once  visited 
Jerusalem,  it  is  just  possible(no  more)  that  he  may  have  seen  Jesus.  The  tendency  of  his  spiritualism  was 
"  to  exalt  knowledge  in  place  of  action  ;  its  home  was  in  the  cells  of  the  recluse,  and  not  in  the  field  or  the 
market;  its  truest  disciples  were  visionary  Tlteraft:tit,r,  and  not  Apostles  charged  with  a  Gospel  to  the 
world."  Alexandrianism  "  was  the  ideal  of  heathen  religion  and  the  negation  of  Christianity.  It  sup- 
pressed the  instincts  of  civil  and  domestic  society  which  Christianity  ennobled  ;  it  perpetuates  the  barriers 
which  Christianity  removed  ;  it  abandoned  the  conflict  which  Christianity  carries  out  to  victory." 


86  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

(even  if  his  name  had  ever  been  heard — which  is  exceedingly  doubtful — ■ 
in  so  remote  a  region  as  Galilee)  it  would  be  impossible,  among  the 
world's  philosophies,  to  choose  any  system  less  like  the  doctrines  which 
Jesus  taught,  than  the  mystic  theosophy  and  allegorizing  extravagance 
of  that  "  sea  of  abstractions "  which  lies  congealed  in  his  writings. — 
From  Hillel  and  Shammaif  We  know  but  little  of  them  ;  but  although,  in 
one  or  two  passages  of  the  Gospels,  there  may  be  a  conceivable  allusion 
to  the  disputes  which  agitated  their  schools,  or  to  one  or  two  of  the 
best  and  truest  maxims  which  originated  in  them,  such  allusions,  on  the 
one  hand,  involve  no  more  than  belongs  to  the  common  stock  of  truth 
taught  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  men  in  every  age ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  system  which  Shammai  and  Hillel  taught  was  that  oral 
tradition,  that  dull  dead  Levitical  ritualism,  at  once  arrogant  and  impo- 
tent, at  once  frivolous  and  unoriginal,  which  Jesus  both  denounced  and 
overthrew. '  The  schools  in  which  Jesus  learnt  were  not  the  schools  of 
the  Scribes,  but  the  school  of  holy  obedience,  of  sweet  contentment,  of 
unalloyed  simplicity,  of  stainless  purity,  of  cheerful  toil.  The  lore  in 
which  He  studied  was  not  the  lore  of  Rabbinism,  in  which  to  find  one 
just  or  noble  thought  we  must  wade  through  masses  of  puerile  fancy 
and  cabalistic  folly,  but  the  Books  of  God  without  Him,  in  Scripture, 
in  Nature,  and  in  Life  ;  and  the  Book  of  God  within  Him,  written  on 
the  fleshly  tables  of  the  heart. 

The  education  of  a  Jewish  boy  of  the  humbler  classes  was  almost 
solely  scriptural  and  moral,''  and  his  parents  were,  as  a  rule,  his  sole 
teachers.  We  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  child  Jesus  was  taught  by 
Joseph  and  Mary  to  read  the  Shema  (Deut.  vi.  4),  and  the  Hallel  (Ps. 
cxiv. — cxviii.),  and  the  simpler  parts  of  those  holy  books,  on  whose  pages 
His  divine  wisdom  was  hereafter  to  pour  such  floods  of  light. 

1  We  shall  see  hereafter  that  in  all  questions  such  as  that  respecting  divorce,  the  decisions  of  Jesus 
were  wholly  different  from  those  either  of  Hillel  or  of  Shammai.  Can  it  be  regarded  as  certain  that  Hillel 
occupied  among  his  contemporaries  anything  like  the  space  which  he  occupies  in  tradition  ?  Unless  he  be 
the  same  as  PoUio — which,  to  say  the  least,  is  very  doubtful,  for  PoUio  seems  to  be  Abtalion  who  preceded 
Hillel — Josephus  does  not  even  mention  him,  though  there  could  be  no  possible  reason,  whether  of  timidity  or 
of  uncertainty,  to  pass  over  his  name,  as  he  passes  over  that  of  Jesus. 

2  Exod.  xii.  26;  Deut.  passim;  Acts  xxii.  3  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  15.  In  Ecclus.  xxxviii.  24  seqq.,  there  is 
a  striking  contrast  between  the  limited  studies  and  opportunities  of  the  poor  and  the  range  and  leisure  of 
the    rich.     "  The    wisdom   of   a  learned  man  coraeth  by  opportunity  of    leisure.   .  .   .     How  can  he  get 

wisdom    that     holdeth    the    plow that   driveth    oxen, and    'ivhose    talk   is    of  bullocks? 

So  every  carpenter  and  workmaster  that  laboreth  night  and  day All  these  trust  to   their 

hands They  shall  not  be  sought  for  in  public  counsel,  nor  set  high  in  the  congregation, 

and  they  shall  not  be  found  where  parables  are  spoken  ; but their  desire  is  in  the  work 

of  their  craft." 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  87 

But  He  had  evidently  received  a  further  culture  than  this. 

(i.)  The  art  of  writing  is  by  no  means  commonly  known,  even  in  these 
days,  in  the  East  ;  but  more  than  one  illusion  to  the  form  of  the 
Hebrew  letters,'  no  less  than  the  stooping  to  write  with  His  finger  on 
the  ground/  show  that  our  Lord  could  write,  (ii.)  That  His  knowledge 
of  the  sacred  writings  was  deep  and  extensive — that,  in  fact.  He  must 
almost  have  known  them  by  heart — is  clear,  not  only  from  His  direct 
quotations,  but  also  from  the  numerous  allusions  which  He  made  to  the 
Law  and  to  the  Hagiographa,  as  well  as  to  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Daniel, 
Joel,  Hosea,  Micah,  Zechariah,  Malachi,  and,  above  all,  to  the  Book  of 
Psalms.^  It  is  probable,  though  not  certain,  that  He  was  acquainted 
with  the  uncanonical  Jewish  books.^  This  profound  and  ready  knowledge 
of   the    Scriptures    gave    more    point    to    the    half-indignant    question,   so 

^XHKeeN  A£  B\CI\eYCCOAOM<x>NeiCYNM^ 
XHCI N  AVTCOMeTAnrOVTTOCXpeS-MK.YTON 
MTOXHCKOTTHCrrO  VX.OAA\\OrO  MOf  KXI 

xcDNE^ci  A.ea^^4^^cl^MMeT^Y^^oYeiC'^H  n 
K01\AAJw^rH^4c^vH•T0YT'o^-lNTOTreAlOKI 
BA.eiKea3M'  icMMe\.'xice2i^eK.RAc^\6YC 

CA<VHMe'3[MNerKeHXj>TOYCI<'XIOI  MON  H  N 

J^.e  I  epe  YOT?o  y  ©  v  toy  yS^icttov-  k  x\e\sarH 

EARLY   GREEK    WRITING,    FROM   A  VERY   ANCIENT   GREEK   MS.    (GENESIS   XIV.    1 7),    SAID   TO    HAVE   BELONGED 
TO  ORIGEN.      (.Vow  in  tJie  Cottonian  Library.) 

often  repeated,  "Have  ye  not  read?"  (iii.)  The  language  which  our  Lord 
commonly  spoke  was  Aramaic ;  and  at  that  period  Hebrew  was  com- 
pletely a  dead  language,  known  only  to  the  more  educated,  ■  and  only  to 
be    acquired    by    labor;  yet  it  is  clear  that    Jesus  was  acquainted  with  it, 

1  Matt.  V.  iS. 

2  John  viii.  6. 

3  These  all  occur  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel. 

4  CI.  Matt.  xi.  2S  seq.  with  Ecclus.  li.  26,  &c.,  and  Luke  xiv.  28  with  2  Mace.  ii.  2g,  30.  Every  respect- 
able family  possessed  at  least  a  portion  of  the  sacred  books.  Prof.  Plumptre  {Christ  and  ChristenUom,  p.  96) 
has  observed  that  James  "  the  Lord's  brother  "  certainly  makes  allusions  to  the  Apocrypha  (cf.  James  i.  6, 
8,  25  with  Ecclus.  vii.  10  ;  i.  23  ;  xiv.  23). 


88  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

for  some  of  His  scriptural  quotations'  directly  refer  to  the  Hebrew- 
original.  Greek  too  He  must  have  known,  for  it  was  currently  spoken 
in  towns  so  near  His  home  as  Sepphoris,  Caesarea,  and  Tiberias.'  Greek 
was,  indeed,  the  common  medium  of  intercourse,  and  without  it  Jesus 
could  have  had  no  conversation  with  strangers — with  the  centurion,  for 
instance,  whose  servant  He  healed,  or  with  Pilate,  or  with  the  Greeks 
who  desired  an  interview  with  Him  in  the  last  week  of  His  life.'  Some 
too  of  His  scriptural  quotations,  if  we  can  venture  to  assume  a  repro- 
duction of  the  ipsisshna  verba*  are  taken  directly  from  the  Greek  version 
of  the  Septuagint,  even  where  it  differs  from  the  Hebrew  original.* 
Whether  He  was  acquainted  with  Latin  is  much  more  doubtful,  though 
not  impossible.  The  Romans  in  Judea  must  by  this  time  have  been  very 
numerous,  and  Latin  was  inscribed  upon  the  coins  in  ordinary  use.*^  But 
to  whatever  extent  He  may  have  known  these  languages,  it  is  clear  that 
they  exercised  little  or  no  influence  on  His  human  development,  nor  is 
there  in  all  His  teaching  a  single  indisputable  allusion  to  the  literature, 
philosophy,  or  history  of  Greece  or  Rome.'  And  that  Jesus  habitually 
tJiought  in  that  Syriac  which  was  His  native  tongue  may  be  conjectured, 
without  improbability,  from  such  curious  plays  on  words  which  are  lost 
in  the  Greek  of  the  Gospels,  but  which  would  have  given  greater  point 
and  beauty  to  some  of  His  utterances,  as  spoken  in  their  original 
tongue.' 

7.  But  whatever  the  boy  Jesus  may  have  learned  as  child  or  boy  in 
the  house  of  His  mother,  or  in  the  school  of  the  synagogue,  we  know 
that    his    best    teaching    was    derived    from    immediate    insight    into    his 

1  Mark  xii.  29,  30  ;  Luke  xxii.  37  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  46. 

2  The  coinage  of  the  Herods  has  Greek  inscriptions.  The  study  of  Greek  was  encouraged  by  some 
Rabbis  ;  as  a  rule,  however,  they  did  not  value  the  acquisition  of  languages,  and  the  learning  of  Greek 
was  absolutely  forbidden  during  the  Roman  war.  Gamaliel  alone,  of  the  Rabbis,  permitted  his  scholars 
to  study  Greek  literature  ;  and  Rabbi  Ismael  said  that  Greek  wisdom  should  only  be  taught  at  the  hour 
which  was  neither  day  nor  night,  since  the  Law  was  to  be  studied  day  and  night. 

3  Matt.  viii.  6 — 9;  xxvii.  11  ;  John  xii.  21. 

4  Of  course  we  cannot  assume  this  in  all  cases.  Although  the  Holy  Evangelists  have  been  guided 
from  above  to  reveal  all  that  is  essential  to  our  salvation  in  the  life  of  Christ,  yet  their  variations  show 
that  they  were  not  endowed  with  a  verbal  exactitude,  which  would  have  been  at  once  supernatural  and 
needless. 

5  Matt.  iv.  7  ;  xiii.  14.  15. 

6  Matt.  x.xii.  19. 

7  It  is  surely  very  far-fetched  tu  ^aA,  as  some  have  done,  a  possible  allusion  to  the  death  of  Socrates 
in  Mark  xvi.  i3. 

8  The  words,  Talitha  cumi,  Aiia,  Cephas,  &c.,  are  all  Aramaic  (or,  as  it  is  called,  Syro-Chaldee);  as  is 
the  cry  upon  the  cross,  "  £/oi,  Eloi,  lama  sabachlluini." 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  89 

Father's  will.  In  the  depths  of  His  inmost  consciousness,  did  that  voice 
of  God,  which  spake  to  the  father  of  our  race  as  he  walked  in  the  cool 
evening  under  the  palms  of  Paradise,  commune — more  plainly,  by  far — - 
with  him.  He  heard  it  in  every  sound  of  nature,  in  every  occupation 
of  life,  in  every  interspace  of  solitary  thought.  His  human  life  was 
"an  ephod  on  which  was  inscribed  the  one  word  God."  Written  on  His 
inmost  spirit,  written  on  His  most  trivial  experiences,  written  in  sun- 
beams, written  in  the  light  of  stars,  He  read  everywhere  His  Father's 
name.  The  calm,  untroubled  seclusion  of  the  happy  valley,  with  its 
green  fields  and  glorious  .scenery,  was  eminently  conducive  to  a  life  of 
spiritual  communion  ;  and  we  know  how  from  its  every  incident^ — the 
games  of  its  innocent  children,'  the  buying  and  selling  in  its  little 
market-place,  the  springing  of  its  perennial  fountain,  the  glory  of  its 
mountain  lilies  in  their  transitory  loveliness,  the  hoarse  cry  in  their  wind- 
rocked  nest  of  the  raven's  callow  brood — He  drew  food  for  moral  illus- 
tration and  spiritual  thought. 

Nor  must  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  was  in  these  silent,  un- 
recorded years  that  a  great  part  of  His  work  was  done.  He  was  not 
only  "girding  His  sword  upon  His  thigh,"  but  also  wielding  it  in  that 
warfare  which  has  no  discharge.''  That  noiseless  battle,  in  which  no 
clash  of  weapons  sounds,  but  in  which  the  combatants  against  us  are 
none  the  less  terrible  because  they  are  not  seen,  went  on  through  all 
the  years  of  His  redeeming  obedience.  In  these  years  He  "began  to  do" 
long  before  He  "began  to  teach."'  They  were  the  years  of  a  sinless  child- 
hood, a  sinless  boyhood,  a  sinless  youth,  a  sinless  manhood,  spent  in  that 
humility,  toil,  obscurity,  submission,  contentment,  prayer,  to  make  them 
an  eternal  example  to  all  our  race.  We  cannot  imitate  Him  in  the 
occupations  of  His  ministry,  nor  can  we  even  remotely  reproduce  in  our 
own  experience  the  external  circumstances  of  His  life  during  those 
three  crowning  years.  But  the  vast  majority  of  us  are  placed,  by  God's 
own  appointment,  amid  those  quiet  duties  of  a  common-place  and 
uneventful  routine  which  are  most  closely  analogous  to  the  thirty  years 
of  His  retirement;  it  was  during  these  years  that  His  life  is  for  us  the 
main  example  of  how  we  ought  to  live.  "  Take  notice  here,"  says  the 
saintly  Bonaventura,   "that    His    doing  nothing  wonderful  was  in  itself  a 

1  Matt.  xi.  16. 

2  Ps.  xlv.  3  ;  Eccles.  viii.  8. 

3  Acts  i.  T.     See  further  on  this  subject  the  note  at  the  end  of  Chap.  IX. 


90  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

kind  of  wonder.  For  His  whole  life  is  a  mystery;  and  as  there  was 
power  in  his  actions,  so  was  there  power  in  His  silence,  in  His  inac- 
tivity, and  in  His  retirement.  This  sovereign  Master,  who  was  to  teach 
all  virtues,  and  to  point  out  the  way  of  life,  began  from  His  youth  up, 
by  sanctifying  in  His  own  person  the  practice  of  the  virtuous  life  He 
came  to  teach,  but  in  a  wondrous,  unfathomable,  and,  till  then,  unheard- 
of-manner." 

His  mere  presence  in  that  home  of  His  childhood  must  have  made 
it  a  happy  one.  The  hour  of  strife,  the  hour  of  the  sword,  the  hour 
when  many  in  Israel  should  rise  or  fall  because  of  Him,  the  hour  when 
the  thoughts  of  many  hearts  should  be  revealed,  the  hour  when  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  should  suffer  violence,  and  the  violent  take  it  by 
force,  was  not  yet  come.  In  any  family  circle  the  gentle  influence  of 
one  loving  soul  is  sufficient  to  breathe  around  it  an  unspeakable  calm ; 
it  has  a  soothing  power  like  the  shining  of  the  sunlight,  or  the  voice 
of  doves  heard  at  evening  : — 

"  It  droppeth,  like  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven, 
Upon  the  place  beneath." 

Nothing  vulgar,  nothing  tyrannous,  nothing  restless  can  perma- 
nently resist  its  beneficent  sorcery ;  no  jangling  discord  can  long  break  in 
upon  its  harmonizing  spell.  But  the  home  of  Jesus  was  no  ordinary 
home.  With  Joseph  to  guide  and  support,  with  Mary  to  hallow  and 
sweeten  it,  with  the  youthful  Jesus  to  illuminate  it  with  the  very  light 
of  heaven,  we  may  well  believe  that  it  was  a  home  of  trustful  piety,  of 
angelic  purity,  of  almost  perfect  peace  ;  a  home  for  the  sake  of  which 
all  the  earth  would  be  dearer  and  more  awful  to  the  watchers  and  holy 
ones,  and  where,  if  the  fancy  be  permitted  us,  they  would  love  to  stay 
their  waving  wings.  The  legends  of  early  Christianity  tell  us  that  night 
and  day,  where  Jesus  moved  and  Jesus  slept,  the  cloud  of  light  shone 
round  about  Him.  And  so  it  was ;  but  that  light  was  no  visible 
Shechinah ;    it  was  the  beauty  of  holiness  ;   it  >yas  the  peace  of  God. 

8.  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Apocryphal  History  of  Joseph 
the  Carpenter,  it  is  stated  that  Joseph  had  four  elder  sons  and  several 
daughters  by  a  previous  marriage,  and  that  the  elder  sons,  Justus  and 
Simon,  and  the  daughters,  Esther  and  Thamar,  in  due  time  married  and 
went  to  their  houses.  "  But  Judas  and  James  the  Less,  and  the  Virgin 
my  mother,"  continues  the  speaker,  who  is  supposed  to  be  Jesus  Him- 
self,  "  remained    in    the    house    of   Joseph.     I    also  continued    along    with 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  91 

them,  not  otherwise  than  if  I  had  been  one  of  his  sons.  I  passed  all 
my  time  without  fault.  I  called  Mary  my  mother,  and  Joseph  father, 
and  in  all  they  said  I  was  obedient  to  them,  nor  did  I  ever  resist  them, 
but  submitted  to  them  ....  nor  did  I  provoke  their  anger  any  day, 
nor  return  any  harsh  word  or  answer  to  them ;  on  the  contrary,  I 
cherished  them  with  immense  love,  as  the  apple  of  my  eye." 

This  passage,  which  I  quote  for  the  sake  of  the  picture  that  it 
offers  of  the  unity  which  prevailed  in  the  home  at  Nazareth,  reminds  us 
of  the  perplexed  question.  Had  our  Lord  any  actual  brothers  and 
sisters  ?  and  if  not,  who  were  those  who  in  the  Gospels  are  so  often 
called  "the  brethren  of  the  Lord?"  Whole  volumes  have  been  written 
on  this  controversy,  and  I  shall  not  largely  enter  on  it  here,  both 
because  I  do  not  wish  these  pages  to  be  controversial,  and  because  I 
have  treated  it  elsewhere.'  The  evidence  is  so  evenly  balanced,  the 
difficulties  of  each  opinion  are  so  clear,  that  to  insist  very  dogmatically 
on  any  positive  solution  of  the  problem  would  be  uncandid  and  conten- 
tious. Some,  in  accordance  certainly  with  the  pri77ia  facie  evidence  of 
the  Gospels,  have  accepted  the  natural  supposition  that,  after  the  miracu- 
lous conception  of  our  Lord,  Joseph  and  Mary  lived  together  in  the 
married  state,  and  that  James,  and  Joses,  and  Judas,  and  Simon,  with 
daughters,  whose  names  are  not  recorded,  were  subsequently  born  to 
them.  According  to  this  view,  Jesus  would  be  the  eldest,  and,  on  the 
death  of  Joseph,  which,  if  we  may  here  follow  tradition,  took  place  when 
He  was  nineteen,  would  assume  the  natural  headship  and  support  of  the  or- 
phaned family.^     But  according  to  another  view,  of  which  St.  Jerome  may  be 

1  In  Smith's  Diet,  of  (he  Bible,  s.  v.  "  Brother." 

2  So  much,  and  so  much  that  is  most  easily  accessible,  has  been  written  on  this  point — a  point  which 
is,  after  all,  incapable  of  positive  solution — that  it  will  be  needless  to  enter  elaborately  upon  it  here, 
especially  as  Dr.  Lightfoot,  in  an  appendix  to  his  edition  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Galatians,  has  treated  it  with 
his  usual  exhaustive  learning  and  accuracy.  Dismissing  all  minor  and  arbitrary  combinations,  there  are 
three  main  views  :  (i)  The  Ileh-idian — that  the  brethren  of  the  Lord  were  the  actual  children  of  Joseph 
and  Mary  ;  (2)  the  Hieronymian — that  they  were  His  first  cousins,  being  sons  of  Mary  and  Alphseus  ;  (3)  the 
Epiphanian — that  they  were  the  sons  of  Joseph  by  a  former  marriage.  Of  these  three  theories,  the  second 
— that  of  St.  Jerome — is  decidedly  the  most  popular,  and  the  one  which  has  least  to  be  said  for  it.  It  has 
not  a  particle  of  tradition  before  the  time  of  St.  Jerome  in  its  favor,  since  the  Papias,  who  is  quoted  as  hav- 
ing held  it,  is,  as  Dr.  Lightfoot  shows,  a  writer  of  the  eleventh  century.  Even  St.  Jerome,  after  his  resi- 
dence in  Palestine,  seems  to  have  abandoned  it ;  and  it  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  observe  that,  at  it  assumes 
three  at  least  of  these  "  brethren  "  to  have  been  actual  apostles,  it  is  in  flagrant  contradiction  to  John  vii. 
5,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  it  depends  on  a  number  of  very  dubious  hypotheses.  The  Epiphanian 
theory  seems  to  have  been  the  tradition  of  Palestine,  and  is  the  one  current  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  ;  but  I 
still  believe  that  the  Helvidian  has  an  overwhelming  preponderance  of  argument  in  its  favor.  The  only  two 
serious  arguments  against  it  are  :  (a)  The  fact  thatour  Lord  intrusted  His  mother  to  the  care  of  St.  John,  not 
of  her  own  children  ;  but  this  is  accounted  for  by  their  acknowledged  want  of  sympathy  with  Him  up  to  that 
time.   It  is  true  that  the  appearance  of  the  risen  Christ  to  James  (i  Cor.  xv.  7)  seems  to  have  wholly  converted 


92  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

called  the  inventor,  these  brethren  of  our  Lord  were  in  reality  His  cousins. 
Mary,  it  is  believed,  had  a  sister  (v  half-sister  of  the  same  name,"  who 
was  married  to  Alphseus  or  Clopas,  and  these  were  their  children.  I 
have  in  the  note  reviewed  some  of  the  evidence.  Each  person  can  form 
upon  that  evidence  a  decided  conviction  of  his  own,  but  it  is  too  scanty 
to  admit  of  any  positive  conclusion  in  which  we  may  expect  a  general 
acquiescence.  In  any  case,  it  is  clear  that  our  Lord,  from  His  earliest 
infancy,  must  have  been  thrown  into  close  connection  with  several  kins- 
men, or  brothers,  a  little  older  or  a  little  younger  than  Himself,  who 
were  men  of  marked  individuality,  of  burning  zeal,  of  a  simplicity  almost 
bordering  on  Essenic  asceticism,  of  overpowering  hostility  to  every  form 
of  corruption,  disorder,  or  impurity,  of  strong  devotion  to  the  Messianic 
hopes,  and  even  to  the  ritual  observances  of  their  country.^  We  know 
that,  though  afterwards  they  became  pillars  of  the  infant  Church,  at  first 
they  did  not  believe  in  our  Lord's  Divinity,  or  at  any  rate  held  views 
which  ran  strongly  counter  to  the  divine  plan  of  His  self-manifestation.' 
Not  among  these,  in  any  case,  did  Jesus  during  His  lifetime  find  His 
most  faithful  followers,  or  His  most  beloved  companions.  There  seemed 
to  be  in  them  a  certain  strong  opinionativeness.  A  Judaic  obstinacy,  a 
lack  of  sympathy,  a  deficiency  in  the  elements  of  tenderness  and  rever- 
ence. Peter,  affectionate  even  in  his  worst  weakness,  generous  even  in 
his    least    controlled    impulse ;    James,    the    son    of    Zebedee,    calm    and 

them  ;  but  there  may  have  been  many  reasons  why  Mary  should  still  live  with  the  Apostle  to  whom  the  Lord 
had  intrusted  her.  The  fact  that  the  names  of  the  sons  of  Alphseus  were  identical  with  those  of  the 
Lord's  brethren  ;  but  this  argument  loses  all  force  from  the  extreme  commonness  of  these  names,  which 
were  as  common  among  the  Jews  as  John  and  William  among  us.  The  genealogies  of  Joseph  show, 
moreover,  that  they  were  in  part  family  and  ancestral  names.  Undoubtedly  the  Helvidian  view — that 
they  were  actual  sons  of  Joseph  and  Mary — is  most  in  accordance  with  the  simple  interpretation  of  the 
Gospel  narratives.  We  have  the  fact  that  they  are  always  called  "  brethren,"  a  fact  which  appears  to  me 
to  be  alone  decisive  against  the  Hieronymian  view  ;  and  the  fact  that  they  are  always  found  accompanying 
the  Virgin  (John  ii.  12  ;  Matt.  xii.  46),  and  not  their  own  (supposed)  mother,  without  the  slightest  hint  that 
they  were  not  in  reality  her  own  children.  To  these  I  would  add,  as  against  the  Epiphanian  theory,  that, 
had  the  "  brethren"  been  elder  sons  of  Joseph,  Jesus  would  not  have  been  regarded  by  any  of  His  fol- 
lowers as  legal  heir  to  throne  of  David  (see  not  only  Matt.  i.  16  ;  Luke  i.  27  ;  but  also  Rom.  i.  3  ;  2  Tim.  ii. 
8  ;  Rev.  xxii.  16). 

1  That  two  sisters  should  both  have  received  the  same  name  seems  very  improbable.  The  custom  of 
the  Herodian  family  would  be  little  likely  to  prevail  among  the  peasants  of  Nazareth.  I  have,  however, 
discovered  one  modern  instance  of  such  a  fact,  and  there  are  doubtless  others. 

2  Especially  Jude  and  James,  if,  as  seems  at  least  possible,  tluy  were  "  the  Lord's  brethren,"  and 
authors  of  the  epistles  which  pass  by  their  names,  but  were  not  actual  apostles  (see  James  i.  i  ;  Jude  17). 

3  John  vii.  3.  4  ;  Mark  iii.  21.  Can  there  be  any  stronger  testimony  of  the  perfect  simplicity  and 
truthfulness  of  the  Gospel  evidence  than  the  fact  that  they  faithfully  record  what  skeptics  are  pleased  to 
consider  so  damaging  an  admission  ?  It  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  what  is  said  in  the  Apocr.  Gospels,  e.g., 
Apocr.  Gosp.  Matt,  xliii. 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  93 

watchful,  reticent  and  true ;  above  all,  John,  whose  impetuosity  lay 
involved  in  a  soul  of  the  most  heavenly  tenderness,  as  the  lightning 
slumbers  in  the  dewdrop — these  were  more  to  Him  and  dearer  than  His 
brethren  or  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh.  A  hard  aggressive  morality 
is  less  beautiful  than  an  absorbing  and  adoring  love.' 

9.  Whether  these  little  clouds  of  partial  miscomprehension  tended  in 
any  way  to  overshadow  the  clear  heaven  of  Christ's  youth  in  the  little 
Galilean  town,  we  cannot  tell.  It  may  be  that  these  brethren  toiled 
with  Him  at  the  same  humble  trade,  lived  with  Him  under  the  same 
humble  roof.  But,  however  this  may  be,  we  are  sure  that  He  would 
often  be  alone.  Solitude  would  be  to  Him,  more  emphatically  than  to 
any  child  of  man,  "  the  audience-chamber  of  God  ;  "  He  would  beyond 
all  doubt  seek  for  it  on  the  gray  hill-sides,  under  the  figs  and  olive-trees, 
amid  the  quiet  fields  ;  during  the  heat  of  noonday,  and  under  the  stars 
of  night.  No  soul  can  preserve  the  bloom  and  delicacy  of  its  existence 
without  lonely  musing  and  silent  prayer ;  and  the  greatness  of  this  neces- 
sity is  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  the  soul.  There  were  many 
times  during  our  Lord's  ministry  when,  even  from  the  loneliness  of 
desert  places,  He  dismissed  His  most  faithful  and  most  beloved,  that  He 
might  be  yet  more  alone. 

10.  It  has  been  implied  that  there  are  but  two  spots  in  Palestine 
where  we  may  feel  an  absolute  moral  certainty  that  the  feet  of  Christ 
have  trod,  namely — the  well-side  at  Schechem,  and  the  turning  of  that 
road  from  Bethany  over  the  Mount  of  Olives  from  which  Jerusalem  first 
bursts  upon  the  view.  But  to  these  I  would  add  at  least  another — the 
summit  of  the  hill  on  which  Nazareth  is  built.  That  summit  is  now 
unhappily  marked,  not  by  any  Christian  monument,  but  by  the  wretched, 
ruinous,  crumbling  wely  of  some  obscure  Mohammedan  saint.  Certainly 
there  is  no  child  of  ten  years  old  in  Nazareth  now,  however  dull  and 
unimpressible  he  may  be,  who  has  not  often  wandered  up  to  it ;  and 
certainly  there  could  have  been  no  boy  at  Nazareth  in  olden  days  who 
had  not  followed  the  common  instinct  of  humanity  by  climbing  up  those 
thymy  hill-slopes  to  the  lovely  and  easily  accessible  spot  which  gives  a 
view  of  the  world  beyond.     The    hill    rises    six    hundred    feet    above    the 

I  If,  as  Wieseler  with  great  probability  supposes,  there  be  any  truth  in  the  tradition  that  Salome  was 
the  sister  of  Mary,  delicately  alluded  to  but  unnamed  in  John  xix.  25  (as  compared  with  Matt,  xxvii.  56; 
Mark  xv.  40),  then  James  and  John  the  sons  of  Zebedee  were  actually  first  cousins  of  our  Lord.  In  that 
case  there  would  still  be  nothing  surprising  in  their  having  first  been  disciples  of  the  Baptist,  for  Mary  and 
Elizabeth  were  related  (Luke  i.  36),  and  the  ministry  of  John  preceded  that  of  Jesus. 


94  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

level  of  the  sea.  Four  or  five  hundred  feet  below  lies  the  happy  valley. 
The  view  from  this  spot  would  in  any  country  be  regarded  as  extraor- 
dinarily rich  and  lovely ;  but  it  receives  a  yet  more  indescribable  charm 
from  our  belief  that  here,  with  His  feet  among  the  mountain  flowers,  and 
the  soft  breeze  lifting  the  hair  from  His  temples,  Jesus  must  often  have 
watched  the  eagles  poised  in  the  cloudless  blue,  and  have  gazed  upwards  as 
He  heard  overhead  the  rushing  plumes  of  the  long  line  of  pelicans,  as 
they  winged  their  way  from  the  streams  of  Kishon  to  the  Lake  of 
Galilee.  And  what  a  vision  would  be  outspread  before  Him,  as  He  sat 
at  spring-time  on  the  green  and  thyme-besprinkled  turf  !  To  him  every 
field  and  fig-tree,  every  palm  and  garden,  every  house  and  synagogue, 
would  have  been  a  familiar  object  ;  and  most  fondly  of  all  amongst  the 
square  flat-roofed  houses  would  His  eye  single  out  the  little  dwelling- 
place  of  the  village  carpenter.  To  the  north,  just  beneath  them,  lay  the  nar- 
row and  fertile  plain  of  Asochis,  from  which  rise  the  wood-crowned  hills  of 
Naphtali ;  beyond  these,  on  the  far  horizon,  Hermon  upheaved  into  the 
blue  the  huge  splendid  mass  of  his  colossal  shoulder.  Eastward,  at  a  few 
miles'  distance,  rose  the  green  and  rounded  summit  of  Tabor,  clothed 
with  terebinth  and  oak.  To  the  west  He  would  gaze  through  that  trans- 
parent air  on  the  purple  ridge  of  Carmel,  among  whose  forests  Elijah 
had  found  a  home  ;  and  on  Caifa  and  Accho,  and  the  dazzling  line  of 
white  sand  which  fringes  the  waves  of  the  Mediterranean,  dotted  here 
and  there  with  the  white  sails  of  the  "ships  of  Chittim."  Southwards, 
broken  only  by  the  graceful  outlines  of  Little  Hermon  and  Gilbioa,  lay 
the  entire  plain  of  Esdraelon,  so  memorable  in  the  history  of  Palestine 
and  of  the  world  ;  across  which  lay  the  southward  path  to  that  city 
which  had  ever  been  the  murderess  of  the  prophets,  and  where  it  may 
be  that  even  now,  in  the  dim  foreshadowing  of  prophetic  vision.  He 
foresaw  the  agony  in  the  garden,  the  mockings  and  scourgings,  the  cross 
and  the  crown  of  thorns. 

The  scene  which  lay  there  outspread  before  the  eyes  of  the  youthful 
Jesus  was  indeed  a  central  spot  in  the  world  which  He  came  to  save.  It 
was  in  the  heart  of  the  Land  of  Israel,  and  yet^separated  from  it  only  by 
a  narrow  boundary  of  hills  and  streams — Phenicia,  Syria,  Arabia,  Baby- 
lonia, and  Egypt  lay  close  at  hand.  The  Isles  of  the  Gentiles,  and  all  the 
gJorious  regions  of  Europe,  were  almost  visible  over  the  shining  waters 
of  that  Western  sea.  The  standards  of  Rome  were  planted  on  the  plain 
before  Him ;    the  language  of    Greece  was    spoken    in    the    towns  below. 


THE  HOME  AT  NAZARETH.  95 

And,  however  peaceful  it  then  might  look,  green  as  a  pavement  of 
emeralds,  rich  with  its  gleams  of  vivid  sunlight,  and  the  purpling  shadows 
which  floated  over  it  from  the  clouds  of  the  latter  rain,  it  had  been  for 
centuries  a  battle-field  of  nations.  Pharaohs  and  Ptolemies,  Emirs  and 
Arsacids,  Judges  and  Consuls,  had  all  contended  for  the  mastery  of  that 
smiling  tract.  It  had  glittered  with  the  lances  of  the  Amalekites ;  it  had 
trembled  under  the  chariot-wheels  of  Sesostris  ;  it  had  echoed  the  twang- 
ing bow-strings  of  Sennacherib  ;  it  had  been  trodden  by  the  phalanxes  of 
Macedonia  ;  it  had  clashed  with  the  broad-swords  of  Rome  ;  it  was  destined 
hereafter  to  ring  with  the  battle-cry  of  the  Crusaders,  and  thunder  with 
the  artillery  of  England  and  of  France.  In  that  Plain  of  Jezreel,  Europe 
and  Asia,  Judaism  and  Heathenism,  Barbarism  and  Civilization,  the  Old 
and  the  New  Covenant,  the  history  of  the  past  and  the  hopes  of  the 
present,  seemed  all  to  meet.  No  scene  of  deeper  significance  for  the 
destinies  of  humanity  could  possibly  have  arrested  the  youthful  Saviour's 
gaze. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


T  11  V.     HA  r  T  ISM     O  K 


"  John  than  which  man  a  sadder  or  a  greater 
Not  till  this  day  has  been  of  woman   born  ; 
John   like  some  iron  peak  by  the  Creator 
Fired  with  the   red  glow  of  the  rushing  morn. 


,S^, 


/ 


H 


HUS    then    His    boyhood,    and    youth,     and    early 

manhood  had  passed  away  in  humble  submission 

and  holy  silence,  and  Jesus  was  now  thirty  years 

old.     That  deep  lesson  for  all  classes  of   men  in 

every  age,  which    was    involved    in    the  long  toil 

and    obscurity    of    those    thirty   years,    had   been 

taught  more  powerfully  than    mere    words    could 

^teach  it,   and  the  hour  for   His  ministry    and    for 

the    great    work    of    His    redemption    had    now 

arrived.      He  was  to  be  the  Saviour  not  only  by 

example,  but  also  by  revelation,  and  by  death. 

And    already    there    had    begun  to  ring  that 

Voice  in  the  Wilderness  which    was    stirring    the 

inmost      heart      of      the     nation     with     its     cry, 

"  Repent  ye,   for  the   Kingdom  of   Heaven   is  at  hand." 

It  was  an  age  of  transition,   of  uncertainty,  of  doubt.      In  the  growth 

of  general  corruption,  in  the  wreck  of  sacred  institutions,  in  those  dense 

clouds    -which    were    gathering    more   and    more   darkly    on    the   political 

horizon,  it    must    have   seemed    to  many  a  pious  Jew  as  if  the  fountains 

of  the  great  deep  were  again  being  broken  up.     Already  the  scepter  had 

departed  from  his  race  ;    already  its  high-priesthood   was    contemptuously 

tampered  with  by  Idumaean  tetrarchs  or  Roman  procurators ;  already  the 

chief  influence  over  his  degraded  Sanhedrin  was  in  the  hands   of   supple 

Herodians  or  wily  Sadducees.      It  seems  as  if    nothing   was    left    for   his 

consolation  but  an  increased  fidelity  to   Mosaic  institutions,   and  a  deepen- 

inor    intensity    of     Messianic    hopes.      At    an    epoch    so    troubled    and   so 

restless — when     old     things    were     rapidly    passing     away,     and    the    new 

96 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  JOHN.  97 

continued  unrevealed — it  might  almost  seem  excusable  for  a  Pharisee  to 
watch  for  every  opportunity  of  revolution  ;  and  still  more  excusable  for 
Essene  to  embrace  a  life  of  celibacy,  and  retire  from  the  society  of  man. 
There  was  a  general  expectation  of  that  "wrath  to  come,"  which  was  to 
be  the  birth-throe  of  the  coming  kingdom — the  darkness  deepest  before 
dawn.'  The  world  had  grown  old,  and  the  dotage  of  its  paganism  was 
marked  by  hideous  excesses.  Atheism  in  belief  was  followed,  as  among 
nations  it  has  always  been,  by  degradation  of  morals.  Iniquity  seemed  to 
have  run  its  course  to  the  very  farthest  goal.  Philosophy  had  abrogated 
its  boasted  functions  except  for  the  favored  few.  Crime  was  universal,  and 
there  was  no  known  remedy  for  the  horror  and  ruin  which  it  was  caus- 
ing in  a  thousand  hearts.  Remorse  itself  seemed  to  be  exhausted,  so 
that  men  were  "past  feeling.""  There  was  a  callosity  of  heart,  a  petri- 
fying of  the  moral  sense,  which  even  those  who  suffered  from  it  felt  to 
be  abnormal  and  portentous.^  Even  the  heathen  world  felt  that  "  the 
fullness  of  the  time"  had  come. 

At  such  periods  the  impulse  to  an  ascetic  seclusion  becomes  very 
strong.  Solitary  communion  with  God  amid  the  wildest  scenes  of  nature 
seems  preferable  to  the  harassing  speculations  of  a  dispirited  society. 
Self-dependence,  and  subsistence  upon  the  very  scantiest  resources  which  can 
supply  the  merest  necessities  of  life,  are  more  attractive  than  the  fretting 
anxieties  and  corroding  misery  of  a  crushed  and  struggling  poverty. 
The  wildness  and  silence  of  indifferent  Nature  appear  at  such  times  to 
offer  a  delightful  refuge  from  the  noise,  the  meanness,  and  the  malignity 
of  men.  Banus,  the  Pharisee,  who  retired  into  the  wilderness,  and  lived 
much  as  the  hermits  of  the  Thebaid  lived  in  after  years,  was  only  one 
of  many  who  where  actuated  by  these  convictions.  Josephus,  who  for 
three  years  had  lived  with  him  in  his  mountain  caves,  describes  his  stern 
self-mortifications  and  hardy  life,  his  clothing  of  woven  leaves,  his  food 
of  the  chance  roots  which  he  could  gather  from  the  soil,  and  his  daily 
and  nightly  plunge  in  the  cold  water  that  his  body  might  be  clean  and 
his  heart  pure. 

But  asceticism  may  spring  from  very  different  motives.  It  may 
result  from  the  arrogance  of  the  cynic  who  wishes  to  stand  apart  from 
all  men  ;  or  from  the  disgusted  satiety  of  the  epicurean  who  would  fain 
find     a     refuge    even     from    himself;    or    from    the    selfish    terror    of    the 

1  Mai.  iii.  i  ;  iv.  2. 

2  I  have  slightly  sketched  the  characteristics  of  tTu"  age  in  Setkers  afUr  God,  pp.  36—53. 

3  Eph.    iv.  17 — 19. 
7 


98  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

fanatic,  intent  only  on  his  own  salvation.  Far  dU^erent  and  far  nobler 
was  the  hard  simplicity  and  noble  self-denial  of  the  Baptist.  It  is  by  no 
idle  fancy  that  the  mediaeval  painters  represent  him  as  emaciated  by  a 
proleptic  asceticism.'  The  tendency  to  the  life  of  a  recluse  had  shown 
itself  in  the  youthful  Nazarite  from  his  earliest  years ;  but  in  him  it 
resulted  from  the  consciousness  of  a  glorious  mission — it  was  from  the 
desire  to  fulfill  a  destiny  inspired  by  burning  hopes.  .St.  John  was  a 
dweller  in  the  wilderness,  only  that  he  might  thereby  become  the  prophet 
of  the  Highest.  The  light  which  was  within  him  should  be  kindled,  if 
need  be,  into  a  self-consuming  flame,  not  for  his  own  glory,  but  that  it 
might  illuminate  the  pathway  of  the  coming  King. 

The  nature  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  was  full  of  impetuosity  and  fire. 
The  long  struggle  which  had  given  him  so  powerful  a  mastery  over  him- 
self— which  had  made  him  content  with  self-obliteration  before  the  pres- 
ence of  his  Lord — which  had  inspired  him  with  fearlessness  in  the  face 
of  danger,  and  humility  in  the  midst  of  applause — had  left  its  traces  in 
the  stern  character,  and  aspect,  and  teaching  of  the  man.  If  he  had 
won  peace  in  the  long  prayer  and  penitence  of  his  life  in  the  wilder- 
ness, it  was  not  the  spontaneous  peace  of  a  placid  and  holy  soul.  The 
victory  he  had  won  was  still  encumbered  with  traces  of  the  battle ; 
the  calm  he  had  attained  still  echoed  with  the  distant  mutter  of  the 
storm.  His  very  teaching  reflected  the  imagery  of  the  wilderness — the 
rock,  the  serpent,  the  barren  tree.  "In  his  manifestation  and  agency," 
it  has  been  said,  "  he  was  like  a  burning  torch  ;  his  public  life  was  quite 
an  earthquake — the  whole  man  was  a  sermon  ;  he  might  well  call  himself 
a  voice — the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way 
of  the  Lord." 

While  he  was  musing  the  fire  burned,  and  at  the  last  he  spake  with 
his  tongue.  Almost  from  boyhood  he  had  been  a  voluntary  eremite.  In 
solitude  he  had  learnt  things  unspeakable  ;  there  the  unseen  world  had 
become  to  him  a  reality;  there  his  spirit  had  caught  "a  touch  of  phantasy 
and  flame."  Communing  with  his  own  great  lonely  heart — communing 
with  the  high  thoughts  of  that  long  line  of  prophets,  his  predecessors  to 
a  rebellious  people — communing  with  the  utterances  that  came  to  him 
from  the  voices  of  the  mountain  and  the  sea — he  had  learnt  a  deeper 
lore  than  he    could    have  ever    learnt    at    Hillel's  or  Shammai's  feet.      In 

1  As,  for  instance,  in  a  fine  picture  by  Sandro  Botticelli  in    the  Borghese   Palace   at  Rome.     Compare 
»he  early  life  of  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia. 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  JOHN.  99 

the  tropic  noonday  of  that  deep  Jordan  valley,  where  the  air  seems  to 
be  full  of  a  subtle  and  quivering  flame — in  listening  to  the  howl  of  the 
wild  beasts  in  the  long  night,  under  the  luster  of  stars  "that  seemed  to 
hang  like  balls  of  fire  in  a  purple  sky" — in  wandering  by  the  sluggish 
cobalt-colored  waters  of  that  dead  and  accursed  lake,  until  before  his  eyes, 
dazzled  by  the  saline  efflorescence  of  the  shore  strewn  with  its  wrecks . 
of  death,  the  ghosts  of  the  guilty  seemed  to  start  out  of  the  sulphurous 
ashes  under  which  they  were  submerged — he  had  learnt  a  language,  he 
had  received  a  revelation,  not  vouchsafed  to  ordinary  men — attained,  not 
in  the  schools  of  the  Rabbis,  but  in  the  school  of  solitude,  in  the  school 
of  God. 

Such  teachers  are  suited  for  such  times.  There  was  enough  and  to 
spare  of  those  respectable,  conventional  teachers,  who  spake  smooth 
things  and  prophesied  deceits.  The  ordinary  Scribe  or  Pharisee,  sloek 
with  good  living  and  supercilious  with  general  respect,  might  get  up  in 
the  synagogue,  with  his  broad  phylacteries  and  luxurious  robes,  and 
might,  perhaps,  minister  to  some  sleepy  edification  with  his  midrash  of 
hair-splitting  puerilities  and  threadbare  precedents ;  but  the  very  aspect 
of  John  the  Baptist  would  have  shown  that  there  was  another  style  of 
teacher  here.  Even  before  the  first  vibrating  tone  of  a  voice  that  rang 
with  scorn  and  indignation,  the  bronzed  countenance,  the  unshorn  locks, 
the  close-pressed  lips,  the  leathern  girdle,  the  mantle  of  camel's  hair,' 
would  at  once  betoken  that  here  at  last  was  a  man  who  was  a  man 
indeed  in  all  his  natural  grandeur  and  dauntless  force,  and  who,  like  the 
rough  Bedawy  prophet  who  was  his  antitype,  would  stand  unquailing 
before  purple  Ahabs  and  adulterous  Jezebels.  And  then  his  life  was 
known.  It  was  known  that  his  drink  was  water  of  the  river,  and  that 
he  lived  on  locusts^  and  wild  honey.^  Men  felt  in  him  that  power  of 
mastery  which  is  always  granted  to  perfect  self-denial.  He  who  is" 
superior  to  the  common  ambitions  of  man,  is  superior  also  to  theii 
common  timidities.  If  he  have  little  to  hope  from  the  favor  of  his  fel- 
lows, he  has  little  to  fear  from  their  dislike  ;  with  nothing  to  gain  from 
the  administration  of  servile  flattery,  he  has  nothing  to  lose  by  the 
expression  of    just    rebuke.      He  sits  as  it  were  above  his  brethren,  on  a 

1  Cf.  2  Kings  i.  8  ;  Zech.  xiii.  4  ;  Heb.  xi.  37. 

2  Lev.  xi.  22  ;  Plin.  ii.  29.  The  fancy  that  it  means  the  pods  of  the  so-called  locust-tree  (carob)  is  a 
mistake.  Locusts  are  sold  as  articles  of  food  in  regular  shops  for  the  purpose  at  Medina;  they  are  plunged 
into  salt  boiling  water,  dried  in  the  sun,  and  eaten  with  butter,  but  only  by  the  poorest  beggars.  Most 
Bedawin  speak  of  eating  them  with  disgust  and  loathing  (Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  \\.  xxviii.). 

3  I  Sam.  xiv.  25  ;  Ps.  Ixxxi.  16. 


lOO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

sunlit  eminence  of  peace  and  purity,  unblinded  by  the  petty  mist  that 
dim  their  vision,  untroubled  by  the  petty  influences  that  disturb  their 
life. 

No  wonder  that  such  a  man  at  once  made  himself  felt  as  a  power 
in  the  midst  of  his  people.  It  became  widely  rumored  that  in  the  wil- 
derness of  Judea,  lived  one  whose  burning  words  it  was  worth  while  to 
hear  ;  one  who  recalled  Isaiah  by  his  expressions,'  Elijah  by  his  life.  A 
Tiberius  was  polluting  by  his  infamies  the  throne  of  the  Empire ;  a 
Pontius  Pilate  with  his  insolences,  cruelties,  extortions,  massacres,  was 
maddening  a  fanatic  people ;  Herod  Antipas  was  exhibiting  to  facile 
learners  the  example  of  calculated  apostacy  and  reckless  lust  ;  Caiaphas 
and  Annas  were  dividing  the  functions  of  a  priesthood  which  they  dis- 
graced. Yet  the  talk  of  the  new  Prophet  was  not  of  political  circum- 
stances such  as  these  ;  the  lessons  he  had  to  teach  were  deeper  and  more 
universal  in  their  moral  and  social  significance.  Whatever  might  be  the 
class  who  flocked  to  his  stern  solitude,  his  teaching  was  intensely  prac- 
tical, painfully  heart-searching,  fearlessly  downright.  And  so  Pharisee 
and  Sadducee,  scribe  and  soldier,  priest  and  publican,  all  thronged  to 
listen  to  his  words.'  The  place  where  he  preached  was  that  wild  range 
of  uncultivated  and  untenanted  wilderness,  which  stretches  southward  from 
Jericho  and  the  fords  of  Jordan  to  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea.  The 
cliffs  that  overhung  the  narrow  defile  which  lead  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho  were  the  haunt  of  dangerous  robbers  ;  the  wild  beasts  and  the 
crocodiles  were  not  yet  extinct  in  the  reed-beds  that  marked  the  swellings 
of  Jordan  ;  yet  from  every  quarter  of  the  country — from  priestly  Hebron, 
from  holy  Jerusalem,  from  smiling  Galilee — they  came  streaming  forth, 
to  catch  the  accents  of  this  strange  voice.  And  the  words  of  that  voice 
were  like  a  hammer  to  dash  in  pieces  the  flintiest  heart,  like  a  flame  to 
pierce  into  the  most  hidden  thoughts.  Without  a  shadow  of  euphemism, 
without  an  accent  of  subservance,  without  a  tremor  of  hesitation,  he  re- 
buked the  tax-gatherers  for  their  extortionateness  ;  the  soldiers  for  their 
violence,  unfairness,  and  discontent  ;  the  wealthy  Sadducees,  the  stately 
Pharisees,  for  a  formalism  and  falsity  which  made  them  vipers  of  a  viperous 

1  Compare  Isa.  lix.  5  with  Matt.  iii.  7  ;  Isa.  iv.  4  and  xliv.  3  with  Matt.  iii.  11  ;  Isa.  xl.  3  with 
Luke  iii.  4;  Isa.  Iii.  10  with  Luke  iii.  6,  &c. 

2  But  the  Pharisees  "  were  not  baptized  of  him  "  (Luke  vii.  30).  St.  John  expresses  the  frankest 
and  most  contemptuous  amazement  at  their  presence  (Matt.  iii.  7).  And  their  brief  willingness  to  listen 
was  soon  followed  by  the  violent  and  summary  judgment,  "  He  hath  a  devil"  (Matt.  xi.  18).  This  was 
not  the  only  age  in  which  such  a  remark  has  served  as  an  angry  and  self-deceiving  synonym  for  "  we 
cannot  and  will  not  accept    his  words." 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  JOHN.  lOI 

brood.  The  whole  people  he  warned  that  their  cherished  privileges 
were  worse  than  valueless  if,  without  repentance,  they  regarded  them  as 
a  protection  against  the  wrath  to  come.  They  prided  themselves  upon 
their  high  descent  ;  but  God,  as  He  had  created  Adam  out  of  the  earth, 
so  even  out  of  those  flints  upon  the  strand  of  Jordan  was  able  to  raise 
up  children  unto  Abraham.  They  listened  with  accusing  consciences  and 
stricken  hearts  ;  and  since  he  had  chosen  baptism  as  his  symbol  of  their 
penitence  and  purification,  "  they  were  baptized  of  him  in  Jordan,  con- 
fessing their  sins."  Even  those  who  did  not  submit  to  his  baptism  were 
yet  "  willing  for  a  season  to  rejoice  in  his  light." 

But  he  had  another  and  stranger  message — a  message  sterner,  yet 
more  hopeful — to  deliver.  For  himself  he  would  claim  no  authority  save 
as  the  forerunner  of  another  ;  for  his  own  baptism  no  value,  save  as  an 
initiation  into  the  kingdom  that  was  at  hand.'  When  the  deputation 
from  the  Sanhedrin  asked  him  who  he  was — when  all  the  people  were 
musing  in  their  hearts  whether  he  were  the  Christ  or  no — he  never  for 
a  moment  hesitated  to  say  that  he  was  not  the  Christ,  nor  Elias,  neither 
that  prophet.'  He  was  "a  voice  in  the  wilderness,"  and  nothing  more; 
but  after  him — and  this  was  the  announcement  that  stirred  most  power- 
fully the  hearts  of  men — after  him  was  coming  One  who  was  preferred 
before  him,  for  He  was  before  him  ^ — One  whose  shoe's  latchet  he  was 
unworthy  to  unloose* — One  who  should  baptize,  not  with  water,  but  with 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  with  fire^ — One  whose  fan  was  in  His  hand,  and 
who  should  thoroughly  purge  His  floor — who  should  gather  His  wheat 
into  the  garner,  but  burn  up  the  chaff  with  unquenchable  fire.  The 
hour  for  the  sudden  coming  of  their  long-promised,  long-expected  Mes- 
siah was  at  hand.  His  awful  presence  was  near  them,  was  among  them, 
but  they  knew   Him  not. 

Thus  repentance  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  were  the  two  cardinal 
points  of  his  preaching,  and  though  he  did  not  claim  the  credentials  of 
a  single  miracle,*  yet  while  he  threatened  detection  to  the  hypocrite  and 

1  It  was,  as  Olshausen  says,  "  a  baptism  of  repentance"  not  "  a  laverof  regeneration  "  (Titus  iii.  5). 

2  i.e.,  one  of   the  great  prophets  like  Jeremiah  (cf.  2  Mace.  ii.  7),  whose  return  was  expected  as  a  pre- 
cursor of  the  Messiah,  and  who  was  especially  alluded  to  in  Deut.  xviii.  15,  18  ;  Acts  iii.  22  ;  vii.  37. 

3  John  i.  30  means  "  ^«^ before  me." 

4  Or,  "  to  carry  his  shoes  "  (Matt.  iii.  11).     Both  were  servile  functions. 

5  The  most  immediate  and  obvius  interpretation  of   these  words  is  to  be  found  in  Acts  ii.  3  ;  but 
there  may  also  be  a  reference  to  fiery  trials  (Luke  xii.  49  ;   i  Pet.  i.  7)  and  fiery  judgments  (i  Cor.  iii.  13). 

6  This  should  be  noted  as  a  most  powerful  argument  of  the  Gospel  truthfulness.     If,  as  the  schools  of 
modern  rationalists  argue,  the  miracles  be  mere  myths,  why  was   no  miracle  attributed  to   St.  John  ?     Not 


lOr  THE   PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

destruction  to  the  hardened,  he  promised  also  pardon  to  the  penitent 
and  admission  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  the  pure  and  clean. 
"The  two  great  utterances,"  it  has  been  said,  "which  he  brings  from 
the  desert,  contain  the  two  capital  revelations  to  which  all  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  Gospel  has  been  tending.  Law  and  prophecy  ;  denunciation 
of  sin  and  promise  of  pardon  ;  the  flame  which  consumes  and  the  light 
which  consoles — is  not  this  the  whole  of  the  covenant  ?  " 

To  this  preaching,  to  this  baptism,  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  age,' 
came  Jesus  from  Galilee.  John  was  His  kinsman  by  birth, '  but  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  life  had  entirely  separated  them.  John,  as  a  child 
in  the  house  of  the  blameless  priest  his  father,  had  lived  at  Juttah,  in 
the  far  south  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  not  far  from  Hebron  ;3  Jesus 
had  lived  in  the  deep  seclusion  of  the  carpenter's  shop  in  the  valley 
of  Galilee.  When  He  first  came  to  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  the  great 
forerunner,  according  to  his  own  emphatic  and  twice  repeated  testimony, 
"knew  Him  not."  And  yet,  though  Jesus  was  not  yet  revealed  as  the 
Messiah  to  His  great  herald-prophet,  there  was  something  in  His  look, 
something  in  the  sinless  beauty  of  His  ways,  something* in  the  solemn 
majesty  of  His  aspect,  which  at  once  overawed  and  captivated  the  soul 
of  John.  To  others  he  was  the  uncompromising  prophet;  kings  he 
could  confront  with  rebuke ;  PharisecL  he  could  unmask  with  indigna- 
tion ;  but  before  this  Presence  all  his  lofty  bearing  falls.  As  when  some 
unknown  dread  checks  the  flight  of  the  eagle,  and  makes  him  settle 
with  hushed  scream  and  drooping  plumage  on  the  ground,  so  before 
"the  royalty  of  inward  happiness,"  before  the  purity  of  sinless  life,  the 
wild  prophet  of  the  desert  becomes  like  a  submissive  and  timid  child.* 
The  battle-brunt  which  legionaires  could  not  daunt — the  lofty  manhood 
before  which  hierarchs  trembled  and  princes  grew  pale — resigns  itself, 
submits,  adores   before    a    moral    force  which    is  weak    in    every  external 

certainly  from  any  deficient  sense  of  his  greatness.  Why  then  ?  because  "  John  did  no  miracle,"  and  be- 
cause the  Evangelists  speak  the  words  of  soberness  and  truth. 

1  The  arguments  in  favor  of  our  Lord's  having  been  fifty  years  of  age,  although  adopted  by  Irenasus, 
partly  apparently  from  tradition,  party  on  fanciful  grounds,  and  partly  by  mistaken  inference  from  John 
viii.  57,  are  wholly  insufficient  to  outweigh  the  distinct  statement  by  St.  Luke,  and  the  manifold  probabili- 
ties of  the  case. 

2  The  relationship  between  Mary  and  Elizabeth  does  not  prove  that  Mary  was  of  the  tribe  of  Levi, 
since  intermarriage  between  the  tribes  was  freely  permitted  (2  Chron.  xxii.  11). 

3  On  Juttah,  see  Luke  i.  39  ;  it  was  a  priestly  city. 

4  Stier  beautifully  says,  "He  has  baptized  many;  has  seen,  and  in  some  sense  seen  through  men 
of  all  kinds  ;  but  no  one  like  this  had  as  yet  come  before  him.  They  have  all  bowed  down  before  him  ; 
but  before  this  Man  bows  down,  in  the  irrepressible  emotion  of  his  own  most  profound  contrition,  the 
sinfal  man  i.i  the  greatest  prophet." 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  JOHN.  lOJ 

attribute,  and  armed  only  in  an  invisible  mail.  John  bowed  to  the 
simple  stainless  manhood  before  he  had  been  inspired  to  recognize  the 
Divine  commission.  He  earnestly  tried  to  forbid  the  purpose  of  Jesus.' 
He  who  had  received  the  confession  of  all  others,  now  reverently  and 
humbly  makes  his  own.  "  I  have  need  to  be  baptized  of  Thee,  and 
comest  Thou   to  me?" 

The  answer  contains  the  second  recorded  utterance  of  Jesus,  and 
the  first  word  of  His  public  ministry — "Suffer  it  to  be  so  now:  for  thus 
it  becometh  us  to  fulfill  all  righteousness." 

"  I  will  sprinkle  clean  water  upon  you,  and  ye  shall  be  clean"  ^ — such 
seems  to  have  been  the  burden  of  John's  message  to  the  sinners  who 
had  become  sincerely  penitent. 

But,  if  so,  why  did  our  Lord  receive  baptism  at  His  servant's  hands? 
His  own  words  tell  us  ;  it  was  to  fulfill  every  requirement  to  which  God's 
will  might  seem  to  point  (Ps.  xl.  7,  8).  He  did  not  accept  it  as  sub- 
sequent to  a  confession,  for  He  was  sinless ;  and  in  this  respect,  even 
before  he  recognized  Him  as  the  Christ,  the  Baptist  clearly  implied  that 
the  rite  would  be  in  His  case  exceptional.  But  He  received  it  as  rati- 
fying the  mission  of  His  great  forerunner — the  last  and  greatest  child  of 
the  Old  Dispensation,  the  earliest  herald  of  the  New  ;  and  He  also  re- 
ceived it  as  the  beautiful  symbol  of  moral  purification,  and  the  humble 
inauguration  of  a  ministry  which  came  not  to  destroy  the  Law,  but  to  ful- 
fill. His  own  words  obviate  all  possibility  of  misconception.  He  does 
not  say,  "  I  must,"  but,  "  Thus  it  becometh  us."  He  does  not  say,  "  I 
have  need  to  be  baptized  ; "  nor  does  He  say,  "  Thou  hast  no  need  to 
be  baptized  of  me,"  but  He  says,  "  Suffer  it  to  be  so  now."  This  is,  in- 
deed, but  the  baptism  of  repentance  ;  yet  it  may  serve  to  prefigure  the 
"  laver  of  regeneration."  ^ 

So  Jesus  descended  into  the  waters  of  Jordan,  and  there  the  awful 
sign  was  given  that  this  was  indeed  "  He  that  should  come."  From  the 
cloven  heaven  streamed  the  Spirit  of  God  in  a  dovelike  radiance  that 
seemed    to    hover    over    his    head    in    lambent    flame,*    and     the     Bath 

1  Matt.  iii.  14. 

2  Ezek.  xxxvi.  25. 

3  Tit.  iii.  5.  Matt.  iii.  15  has  been  sometimes  taken  to  mean  "every  observance."  Others,  as 
Schenkel,  have  supposed  that  He  submitted  to  baptism  as  it  were  vicariously — i.e.,  as  the  representative  of 
a  guilty  people.  Others,  again  (as  Lange),  say  that  the  act  was  solitary  it  its  character — that  "  social  right- 
eousness drew  him  down  Into  the  stream  ;  "  i.e.,  that  according  to  the  Old  Testament  legislation,  His  bap- 
tism was  required  because  He  was,  as  it  were,  ceremonially  unclean,  as  representing  an  unclean  people. 

4  We  need  not  necessarily  suppose  an  actual  dove,  as  is  clear  from  John  i.  32.  Compare  V  '\ 
"'  with  mighty  wings  outspread.  Dovelike,  sat'st  brooding  on  the  vast  abyss  "  {.Par.  Lost,  i.  io) 


I04  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

A'<7/,'  which  to  the  dull  unpurged  ear  was  but  an  inarticulate  thunder,  spake 
in  the  voice  of  God  to  the  ears  of  John — "This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom   I  am  well  pleased." 

I  The  term  was  sometimes  applied  to  voices  from  heaven,  sometimes  to  sounds  repeated  by  natural 
echo,  sometimes  to  chance  words  overruled  to  providential  significance.  The  Ap«cryphal  Gospels  add  that 
a  fire  was  kindled  in  Jordan, 


^""©©^ 


CHAPTER    IX. 


THE     TEMPTATION. 


IS  human  spirit  filled  with  overpowering  emo- 
tions, Jesus  sought  for  retirement,  to  be  alone 
with  God,  and  once  more  to  think  over  His 
mighty  work.  From  the  waters  of  the  Jordan 
He  was  led — according  to  the  more  intense 
and  picturesque  expression  of  St.  Mark,  He 
was  "driven" — by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilder- 
ness." 

A  tradition,  said  to  be  no  older  than  the 
time  of  the  Crusades,  fixes  the  scene  of  the 
temptation  at  a  mountain  to  the  south  of  Jericho,  which 
from  this  circumstance  has  received  the  name  of  Quaran- 
tania.  Naked  and  arid  like  a  mountain  of  malediction, 
rising  precipitously  from  a  scorched  and  desert  plain, 
and  looking  over  the  sluggish,  bituminous  waters  of  the  Sodomitic 
sea — thus  offering  a  sharp  contrast  to  the  smiling  softness  of  the 
Mountain  of  Beatitudes  and  the  limpid  crystal  of  the  Lake  of  Gen- 
nesareth — imagination  has  seen  in  it  a  fit  place  to  be  the  haunt  of 
evil  influences' — a  place  where,  in  the  language  of  the  prophets, 
the  owls  dwell  and  the  satyrs  dance. 

And  here  Jesus,  according  to  that  graphic  and  pathetic  touch  of  the 
second  Evangelist,  "was  with  the  wild  beasts."  They  did  not  harm  Him. 
"Thou  shalt  tread  upon  the  lion  and  the  adder:  the  young  lion  and  the 

1  Cf.  Rom.  viii.  14;  Ezek.  iii.  14;  Mark  i.  12.  St.  John,  perhaps,  among  other  reasons  which  are 
unknown  to  us,  from  his  general  desire  to  narrate  nothing  of  which  he  had  not  been  an  eye-witness,  omits 
the  narrative  of  the  temptation,  which  clearly  followed  immediately  after  the  baptism.  Unless  a  charge 
of  dishonesty  be  deliberately  maintained,  and  an  adequate  reason  for  such  dishonesty  assigned,  it  is 
clearly  unfair  to  say  that  a  fact  is  willfully  suppressed  simply  because  it  is  not  narrated. — It  seems  probable 
that  on  the  last  day  of  the  temptation  came  the  deputation  to  John  from  the  priests  and  Levites,  and  on 
the  following  day  Christ  returned  from  the  desert,  and  was  saluted  by  the  Baptist  as  the  Lamb  of  God. 

2  Isa.  xiii.  21,  22  ;  xxxiv.  14.  The  Rabbis  said  that  there  were  three  mouths  of  Gehenna — in  the  Desert 
(Numb.  xvi.  33),  in  the  sea  (Jonah  ii.  3),  and  at  Jerusalem  (Isa.  xxxi.  9).  Azazel  (Lev.  xvi.  10,  Heb.)  was  a 
demon  of  "dry  places"  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  43).  Milton's  description  {Par.  Reg.  iii.  242),  probably  derived  from 
some  authentic  source,  "  would  almost  seem  to  have  been  penned  on  the  spot." 


.o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

dragon  shalt  -hou  trample  under  feet."  So  had  the  voice  of  olden  promise 
spoken;'  and  in  Christ,  as  in  so  many  of  His  children,  the  promise  was 
fulfilled.  Those  whose  tir.id  faith  shrinks  from  all  semblance  of  the 
miraculous,  need  find  nothing  to  alarm  them  here.  U  is  not  a  natural 
tiling  that  the  wild  creatures  should  attack  with  ferocity,  or  fly  in  terror 
from,  their  master  man.     A  poet  has  sung  of  a  tropical  isle  that — 

"  Nor  save  for  pity  was  it  hard  to  take 
The  helpless  life,  so  wild  that  it  was  tame."' 

The  terror  or  the  fury  of  animals,  though  continued  by  hereditary 
instinct,  was  begun  by  cruel  and  wanton  aggression  ;  and  historical 
instances  are  not  wanting  in  which  both  have  been  overcome  by  the 
sweetness,  the  majesty,  the  gentleness  of  man.  There  seems  to  be  no 
adequate  reason  for  rejecting  the  unanimous  belief  of  the  early  centuries 
that  the  wild  beasts  of  the  Thebaid  moved  freely  and  harmlessly 
among  the  saintly  eremites,  and  that  even  the  wildest  living  creatures 
were  tame  and  gentle  to  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Who  has  not  known 
people  whose  presence  does  not  scare  the  birds,  and  who  can  approach, 
without  danger,  the  most  savage  dog?  We  may  well  believe  that  the 
mere  human  spell  of  a  living  and  sinless  personality  v/ould  go  far  to 
keep  the  Saviour  from  danger.  In  the  catacombs,  and  on  other  ancient 
monuments  of  early  Christians,  He  is  sometimes  represented  as  Orpheus 
charming  the  animals  with  his  song.  All  that  was  true  and  beautiful  in 
the  old  legends  found  its  fulfillment  in  Him,  and  was  but  a  symbol  of 
His  life  and  work. 

And  He  was  in  the  wilderness  forty  days.  The  number  occurs 
again  and  again  in  Scripture,  and  always  in  connection  with  the  facts  of 
temptation  or  retribution.  It  is  clearly  a  sacred  and  representative 
number,  and  independently  of  other  associations,  it  was  for  forty  days  that 
Moses  had  stayed  on  Sinai,  and  Elijah  in  the  wilderness.  In  moments  of 
intense  excitement  and  overwhelming  thought  the  ordinary  fieeds  of  the 
body  seemed  to  be  modified,  or  even  for  a  time  superseded  ;  and  unless 
we  are  to  understand  St.  Luke's  words,  "  He  did  eat  nothing,"  as  being 
absolutely  literal,  we  might  suppose  that  Jesus  found  all  that  was  neces- 
sary for  His  bare  sustenance  in  such  scant  fruits  as  the  desert  might 
afford; 3    but    however    that    may    be — and    it    is    a    question     of     little 

1  Ps.  xci.  13.     "  The  beasts  of  the  field  shall  be  at  peace  with  thee  "  (Job  v.  23). 

2  Tennyson,  Enoch  Arden. 

3  The  Jewish  hermit  Banus  lived  for  years  on  the  spontaneous  growth  of  this  very  desert.     The  lao< 
guage  of  St.  Matthuw  does  not  necessarily  imply  an  absolute  fast. 


THE  TEMPTATION.  107 

importance — at  the  end  of  the  time  He  hungered.  And  this  was  the  tempt- 
er's moment.  The  whole  period  had  been  one  of  moral  and  spiritual 
tension.'  During  such  high  hours  of  excitement  men  will  sustain,  with- 
out succumbing,  an  almost  incredible  amount  of  labor,  and  soldiers  will 
fight  through  a  long  day's  battle  unconscious  or  oblivious  of  their 
wounds.  But  when  the  enthusiasm  is  spent,  when  the  exaltation  dies 
away,  when  the  fire  burns  low,  when  Nature,  weary  and  overstrained, 
reasserts  her  rights — in  a  word,  when  a  mighty  reaction  has  begun,  which 
leaves  a  man  suffering,  spiritless,  exhausted — then  is  the  time  of  extreme 
danger,  and  that  has  been,  in  many  a  fatal  instance,  the  moment  in 
which  a  man  has  fallen  a  victim  to  insidious  allurement  or  bold  assault. 
It  was  at  such  a  moment  that  the  great  battle  of  our  Lord  against  the 
powers  of  evil  was  fought  and  won. 

The  struggle  was,  as  is  evident,  no  mere  allegoric  semblance.  Into 
the  exact  external  nature  of  the  temptation  it  seems  at  once  superfluous 
and  irreverent  to  enter — superfluous,  because  it  is  a  question  in  which 
any  absolute  decision  is  for  us  Impossible  ;  irreverent,  because  the  Evan- 
gelists could  only  have  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  or  of  those  to 
whom  He  communicated  it,  and  our  Lord  could  only  have  narrated  it 
in  the  form  which  conveys  at  once  the  truest  impression  and  the  most 
instructive  lessons.  Almost  every  different  expositor  has  had  a  different 
view  as  to  the  agency  employed,  and  the  objective  or  subjective  reality 
of  the  entire  event."  From  Origen  down  to  Schleiermacher,  some  have 
regarded  it  as  a  vision  or  allegory — the  symbolic  description  of  a  purely 
inward  struggle ;  and  even  so  literal  and  orthodox  a  commentator  as 
Calvin  has  embraced  this  view.  On  this  point,  which  is  a  matter  of 
mere  exegesis,  each  must  hold  the  view  which  seems  to  him  most  in 
accordance  with  the  truth  ;  but  the  one  essential  point  is  that  the 
struggle  was  powerful,  personal,  intensely  real — that  Christ,  for  our 
sakes,  met  and  conquered  the  tempter's  utmost  strength. 

The  question  as  to  whether  Christ  was  or  was  not  capable  of  sin — - 
to  express  it  in  the  language  of  that  scholastic  and  theological  region  in 
which  it  originated,  the  question  as  to  the  peccability  or  impeccability 
of    His  human  nature— is  one  which  would    never  occur  to.  a  simple  and 

1  Luke  iv.  2,  "  'Q^\n%  forty  days  temptedoi  the  devil." 

2  Very  few  writers  in  the  present  day  will  regard  the  story  of  the  temptation  as  a  narrative  of 
objective  facts.  Even  Lange  gives  the  story  a  natural  turn,  and  supposes  that  the  tempter  may  have 
acted  through  the  intervention  of  human  agency.  Not  only  Hase  and  Weisse,  but  even  Olshausen, 
Neander,  UUmann,  and  many  orthodox  commentators,  make  the  narrative  entirely  symbolical,  and  treat  it 
as  a  profound  and  eternally  significant  parable. 


Io8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

reverent  mind.  We  believe  and  know  that  our  blessed  Lord  was  sin- 
less— the  Lamb  of  God,  without  blemish,  and  without  spot.  What  can 
be  the  possible  edification  or  advantage  in  the  discussion  as  to  whether 
this  sinlessness  sprang  from  a  posse  non  peccai-e  or  a  non  posse  peccare  ? 
Some,  in  a  zeal  at  once  intemperate  and  ignorant,  have  claimed  for 
Him  not  only  an  actual  sinlessness,  but  a  nature  to  which  sin  was 
divinely  and  miraculously  impossible.  What  then?  If  His  great  conflict 
were  a  mere  deceptive  phantasmagoria,  how  can  the  narrative  of  it 
profit  us?  If  we  have  to  fight  the  battle  clad  in  that  armor  of  human 
free-will  which  has  been  hacked  and  riven  about  the  bosom  of  our 
fathers  by  so  many  a  cruel  blow,  what  comfort  is  it  to  us  if  our  great 
Captain  fought  not  only  victoriously,  but  without  real  danger  ;  not  only 
uninjured,  but  without  even  a  possibility  of  wound?  Where  is  the 
warrior's  courage,  if  he  knows  that  for  him  there  is  but  the  semblance  of 
a  battle  against  the  simulacrum  of  a  foe?  Are  we  not  thus,  under  an 
appearance  of  devotion,  robbed  of  Ope  who,  "  though  He  were  a  son, 
yet  learyied  obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered?""  Are  we  not 
thus,  under  the  guise  of  orthodoxy,  mocked  in  our  belief  that  we  have 
a  High  Priest  who  can  be  touched  with  a  feeling  of  our  infirmities, 
"being  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin?""  They 
who  would  thus  honor  Him  rob  us  of  our  living  Christ,  who  was  very 
man  no  less  than  very  God,  and  substitute  for  Him  a  perilous  Apolli- 
narian  phantom  enshrined  "in  the  cold  empyrean  of  theology,"  and  alike 
incapable  of  kindling  devotion,  or  of  inspiring  love. 

Whether,  then,  it  comes  under  the  form  of  a  pseudo-orthodoxy,  false 
and  Pharisaical,  and  eager  only  to  detect  or  condemn  the  supposed  heresy 
of  others;  or  whether  it  comes  from  the  excess  of  a  dishonoring  rever- 
ence which  has  degenerated  into  the  spirit  of  fear  and  bondage — let  us 
beware  of  contradicting  the  express  teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  and,  as 
regards  this  narrative,  the  express  teaching  of  Christ  Himself,  by  a  sup- 
position that  He  was  not  liable  to  real  temptation.  Nay,  He  was  liable 
to  temptation  all  the  sorer,  because  it  came  like  agony  to  a  nature  in- 
finitely strong  yet  infinitely  pure.  In  proportion  as  any  one  has  striven 
all  his  life  to  be,  like  his  great  Ensample,  holy,  harmless,  undefiled,  sepa- 
rate from  sinners,  in  that  proportion  will  he  realize  the  intensity  of  the 
struggle,  the  anguish  of  the  antipathy  which  pervade  a  noble  nature  when, 
either  by  suggestions  from  within  or  from  without,   it  has  been    dragged 

.   Heb.  V.  8.  2  Heb.  iv.  15. 


THE  TEMPTATION.  109 

into  even  apparent  proximity  to  the  possibilities  of  evil.  There  are  few- 
passages  in  the  Pilgrims  Progress  more  powerful,  or  more  suggestive  of 
profound  acquaintance  with  the  mysteries  of  the  human  heart,  than  that  in 
which  Christian  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  finds  his  mind 
filled  with  revolting  images  and  blaspheming  words,  which  have  indeed 
been  but  whispered  into  his  ear,  beyond  his  own  powers  of  rejection,  by 
an  evil  spirit,  but  which,  in  his  dire  bewilderment,  he  cannot  distinguish 
or  disentangle  from  thoughts  which  are  his  own,  and  to  which  his  will 
consents.'  In  Christ,  indeed,  we  suppose  that  such  special  complications 
would  be  wholly  impossible,  not  because  of  any  transcendental  endow- 
ments connected  with  "immanent  divinity"  or  the  "communication  of 
idioms,"  but  because  He  had  lived  without  yielding  to  wickedness,  whereas 
in  men  these  illusions  arise  in  general  from  their  own  past  sins.  They 
are,  in  fact,  nothing  else  but  the  flitting  specters  of  iniquities  forgotten 
or  unforgotten — the  mists  that  reek  upward  from  the  stagnant  places  in 
the  deepest  caverns  of  hearts  not  yet  wholly  cleansed.  No,  in  Christ 
there  could  not  be  this  terrible  inability  to  discern  that  which  comes  from 
within  us  and  that  which  is  forced  upon  us  from  without — between  that 
which  the  weak  will  has  entertained,  or  to  which,  in  that  ever-shifting 
border-land  which  separates  thought  from  action,  it  has  half  assented, 
and  that  with  which  it  does  indeed  find  itself  in  immediate  contact,  but 
which,  nevertheless,  it  repudiates  with  every  muscle  and  fiber  of  its  moral 
being.  It  must  be  a  weak  or  a  perverted  intellect  which  imagines  that 
"man  becomes  acquainted  with  temptation  only  in  proportion  as  he  is 
defiled  by  it,"  or  that  is  unable  to  discriminate  between  the  severity  of 
a  powerful  temptation  and  the  stain  of  a  guilty  thought.  It  may  sound 
like  a  truism,  but  it  is  a  truism  much  needed  alike  for  our  warning  and 

I  There  is  something  of  the  same  conception  in  Milton's  description  of  the  attempts  made  by  the  Evil 
Spirit  to  assoil  the  thoughts  of  Eve  while  yet  she  was  innocent : — 

■'  Him  there  they  found 

Squat  like  a  toad,  close  at  the  ear  of  Eve, 

Assaying  by  his  devlish  art  to  reach 

The  organs  of  her  fancy,  and  with  them  forge 

Illusions  as  he  list,  phantasms  and  dreams,     .     .     . 

At  least  distempered,  discontented  thoughts, 

Vain  hopes,  vain  aims,  inordinate  desires." — Par.  Lest,  iv.  800. 
The  passage  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  is,  "  Christian  made  believe  that  he  spake  blasphemies,  when  it  wa» 
Satan  that  suggested  them  into  his  mind."  It  is  as  follows  : — "  One  thing  I  would  not  let  slip.  I  took  notice 
that  now  poor  Christian  was  so  confounded  that  he  did  not  know  his  own  voice,  and  thus  I  perceived  it. 
Just  when  he  was  come  over  against  the  mouth  of  the  burning  pit,  one  of  the  wicked  ones  got  behind  him 
and  stepped  up  softly  to  him,  and  whisperingly  suggested  many  grievous  blasphemies  to  him,  which  he 
verily  thought  /lad  proceeded  from  his  cnvn  mind  .  .  .  but  he  had  not  the  discretion  either  to  stop  his  ears. 
»r  to  know  from  whence  these  blasphemies  came." 


no  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

our  comfort,  when  the  poet  who,  better  than  any  other,  has  traversed 
every  winding  in  the  labyrinth  of  the  human  heart,  has  told  us  with  such 
solemnity, 

"  'Tis  one  thing  to  be  tempted,  Escalus, 
Another  thing  to  fall."  ■ 

Jesus,  then,  was  tempted.  The  "  Captain  of  our  salvation"  was  "made 
perfect  through  sufferings."'  "In  that  He  Himself  hath  suffered  being 
tempted,  He  is  able  to  succor  them  that  are  tempted."  ^  The  wilderness 
of  Jericho  and  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane — these  witnessed  His  two  most 
grievous  struggles,  and  in  these  He  triumphed  wholly  over  the  worst 
and  most  awful  assaults  of  the  enemy  of  souls  ;  but  during  no  part  of 
the  days  of  His  flesh  was  He  free  from  temptation,  since  otherwise  His 
life  had  been  no  true  human  life  at  all,  nor  would  He  in  the  same 
measure  have  left  us  an  ensample  that  we  should  follow  His  steps. 
"Many  other  were  the  occasions,"  says  St.  Bonaventura,  "on  which  He 
endured  temptations."  "They,"  says  St.  Bernard,  "who  reckon  only 
three  temptations  of  our  Lord,  show  their  ignorance  of  Scripture."  He 
refers  to  John  vii.  i,  and  Heb.  iv.  15;  he  might  have  referred  still  more 
appositely  to  the  express  statement  of  St.  Luke,  that  when  the  tempta- 
tion in  the  wilderness  was  over,  the  foiled  tempter  left  Him  indeed, 
but  left  Him  only  "for  a  season,"*  or,  as  the  words  may  perhaps  be 
rendered,  "  till  a  new  opportunity  occurred."  Yet  we  may  well  believe 
that  when  He  rose  victorious  out  of  the  dark  wiles  in  the  wilderness, 
all  subsequent  temptations,  until  the  last,  floated  as  lightly  over  His 
sinless  soul  as  the  cloud-wreath  of  a  summer  day  floats  over  the  blue 
heaven  which  it  cannot  stain. 

I.  The  exhaustion  of  a  long  fast  would  have  acted  more  powerfully 
on  the  frame  of  Jesus  from  the  circumstance  that  with  Him  it  was  not 
usual.  It  was  with  a  gracious  purpose  that  He  lived,  not  as  a  secluded 
ascetic  in  hard  and  self-inflicted  pangs,  but  as  a  man  with  men.  Nor 
does  He  ever  enjoin  fasting  as  a  positive  obligation,  although  in  two 
passages  He  more  than  sanctions  it  as  a  valuable  aid  (Matt.  vi.  16 — 18; 
ix.    15).      But,  in  general,  we  know    from    His    own  words    that  He  came 

1  Shakespeare,  Measure  /or  Measure,  ii.  i.  Similarly  St.  Augustine  says,  "  It  is  the  devil's  part  to  sug- 
gest, it  is  ours  not  to  consent  ; "  and  St.  Gregory,  "  Sin  is  first  by  suggestion,  then  by  delight,  and  lastly 
by  consent."  Luther  says  that  unless  the  tempting  impression  be  felt,  there  is  no  real  temptation  ;  but 
\xn\e%%\\.\ie.  acquiesced  in  or  yielded  to,  there  \^  no  s\a(SinUssness  of  Jesus,  p.  I2g).  "Where  then  is  the  point 
in  temptation  at  which  sin  begins,  or  at  which  it  becomes  itself  sin  ?  it  is  there  where  the  evil  which  is 
presented  to  us  begins  to  make  a  determining  impression  upon  the  heart"  (id.). 

2  Heb.  ii.  lo.  3  Heb.  ii.  18.  4  Luke  iv.  13. 


THE  TEMPTATION.  Ill 

'  «ating  and  drinking ; "  practicing,  not  abstinence,  but  temperance  in  all 
things,  joining  in  the  harmless  feasts  and  innocent  assemblages  of 
friends,  so  that  His  enemies  dared  to  say  of  Him,  "  Behold  a  gluttonous 
man  ard  a  winebibber,"  as  of  John  they  said,  "  He  hath  a  devil."  After 
His  fast,  therefore,  of  forty  days,  however  supported  by  solemn  contem- 
plation and  supernatural  aid,  His  hunger  would  be  the  more  severe. 
.Vnd  then  it  was  that  the  tempter  came ;  in  what  form^whether  as  a 
spirit  of  darkness  or  as  an  angel  of  light,  whether  under  the  ^''sguise  of 
a  human  aspect  or  an  immaterial  suggestion,  we  do  not  know  ai.d  cannot 
pretend  to  say— content  to  follow  simply  the  Gospel  narrative,  and  to 
adopt  its  expressions,  not  with  dry  dogmatic  assertion  as  to  the  impossi- 
bility of  such  expressions  being  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  allegorical, 
but  with  a  view  only  to  learn  those  deep  moral  lessons  which  alone 
concern  us,  and  which  alone  are  capable  of  an  indisputable  inter- 
pretation. 

"  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  command  that  these  stones  be  made 
loaves."  So  spake  the  tempter  first.  Jesus  was  hungry,  and  "these 
stones"  were  perhaps  those  siliceous  accretions,  sometimes  known  under 
the  name  of  lapides  judaici,  which  assume  the  exact  shape  of  little  loaves 
of  bread,  and  which  were  represented  in  legend  as  the  petrified  fruits  of 
the  Cities  of  the  Plain.  The  pangs  of  hunger  work  all  the  more  power- 
fully when  they  are  stimulated  by  the  added  tortures  of  a  quick  imagi- 
nation ;  and  if  the  conjecture  be  correct,  then  the  very  shape  and  aspect 
and  traditional  origin  of  these  stones  would  give  to  the  temptation  an 
added  force. 

There  can  be  no  stronger  proof  of  the  authenticity  and  divine  origin 
of  this  narrative  than  the  profound  subtlety  and  typical  universality  of 
each  temptation.  Not  only  are  they  wholly  unlike  the  far  cruder  and 
simpler  stories  of  the  temptation,  in  all  ages,  of  those  who  have  been 
eminent  saints,  but  there  is  in  them  a  delicacy  of  insight,  an  originality 
of  conception,  that  far  transcend  the  range  of  the  most  powerful 
invention. 

It  was  a  temptation  to  the  senses — an  appeal  to  the  appetites — an 
impulse  given  to  that  lower  nature  which  man  shares  with  all  the  animal 
creation.  But  so  far  from  coming  in  any  coarse  or  undisguisedly  sensuous 
form,  it  came  shrouded  in  a  thousand  subtle  veils.  Israel,  too,  had  been 
humbled,  and  suffered  to  hunger  in  the  wilderness,  and  there,  in  his 
extreme  need,  God  had  fe*^  ''•'m  with  manna,  which  was    as  angels'  food 


112  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  bread  from  heaven.  Why  did  not  the  Son  of  God  thus  provide 
Himself  with  a  table  in  the  wilderness?  He  could  do  so  if  He  liked, 
and  why  should  He  hesitate?  If  an  angel  had  revealed  to  the  fainting 
Hagar  the  fountain  of  Beer-lahai-roi — if  an  angel  had  touched  the  famish- 
ing Elijah,  and  shown  him  food — why  should  He  await  even  the  ministry 
of  angels  to  whom  such  ministry  was  needless,  but  whom,  if  He  willed 
it,  angels  would  have  been  so  glad  to  serve  ? 

How  deep  is  the  wisdom  of  the  reply  !  Referring  to  the  very  lesson 
which  the  giving  of  the  manna  had  been  designed  to  teach,  and  quoting 
one  of  the  noblest  utterances  of  Old  Testament  inspiration,  our  Lord 
answered,  "  It  standeth  written,  Man  shall  not  live  on  bread  alone,  but 
by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God."  "  And  what  a 
lesson  lies  herein  for  us — a  lesson  enforced  by  how  great  an  example — 
that  we  are  not  to  be  guided  by  the  wants  of  our  lower  nature  ;  that 
we  may  not  misuse  that  lower  nature  for  the  purposes  of  our  own  sus- 
tenance and  enjoyment  ;  that  we  are  not  our  own,  and  may  not  do  what 
we  will  with  that  which  we  imagine  to  be  our  own  ;  that  even  those  things 
which  may  seem  lawful,  are  yet  not  all  expedient  ;  that  man  has  higher 
principles  of  life  than  material  sustenance,  as  he  has  a  higher  existence 
than  his  material  frame.'  He  who  thinks  that  we  live  by  bread  alone, 
will  make  the  securing  of  bread  the  chief  object  of  his  life — will  deter- 
mine to  have  it  at  whatever  cost — will  be  at  once  miserable  and  rebell- 
ious if  even  for  a  time  he  be  stinted  or  deprived  of  it  and,  because  he 
seeks  no  diviner  food,  will  inevitably  starve  with  hunger  in  the  midst  of 
it.  But  he  who  knows  that  man  doth  not  live  by  bread  alone,  will  not 
thus,  for  the  sake  of  living,  lose  all  that  makes  life  dear — will,  when  he 
has  done  his  duty,  trust  God  to  preserve  with  all  things  needful  the 
body  He  has  made — will  seek  with  more  earnest  endeavor  the  bread 
from  heaven,  and  that  living  water  whereof  he  who  drinketh  shall  thirst 
no  more. 

And  thus  His  first  temptation  was  analogous  in  form  to  the  last 
taunt  addressed  to  Him  on  the  cross — "If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God, 
come  down  from  the  cross."  ''If:" — since  faith  and  trust  is  the  main- 
stay of  all  human  holiness,  the  tempter  is  ever  strongest  in  the  suggestion 
of  such  doubts ;  strong,  too,  in  his  appeal  to  the  free-will  and  the  self- 
will  of  man.      "You  may,  you  caji — why  not  do  it?"     On  the   cross   our 

1  Deut.  viii.  3.     Alford  justly  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  Jesus  meets  and  defeats  the  temptatiou 
in  His  humanity  ;  "  Man  shall  not,"  &c. 

2  "  We  live  by  admiration,  hope  and  love." — Wordsworth. 


tHE  TEMPTATION.  113 

Saviour  answers  not  ;  here  he  answers  only  to  express  a  great  eternal 
principle.  He  does  not  say,  "I  atn  the  Son  of  God;"  in  the  profundity 
of  His  humiliation,  in  the  extreme  of  His  self-sacrifice.  He  made  not  His 
equality  with  God  a  thing  to  be  grasped  at,  "but  made  Himself  of  no 
reputation."     He  foils  the  tempter,  not  as  very  God,  but  as  very  man. 

2.  The  order  of  the  temptations  is  given  differently  by  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke,  St.  Matthew  placing  second  the  scene  on  the  pinnacle  of 
the  Temple,  and  St.  Luke  the  vision  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world. 
Both  orders  cannot  be  right,  and  possibly  St.  Luke  may  have  been 
influenced  in  his  arrangement  by  the  thought  that  a  temptation  to 
spiritual  pride  and  the  arbitrary  exercise  of  miraculous  power  was  a 
subtler  and  less  transparent,  and  therefore  more  powerful  one,  than  the 
temptation  to  fall  down  and  recognize  the  power  of  evil.'  But  the  words, 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan,"  recorded  by  both  Evangelists  (Luke  iv.  8  ; 
Matt.  iv.  10) — the  fact  that  St.  Matthew  alone  gives  a  definite  sequence 
("then,"  "again") — perhaps,  too,  the  consideration  that  St.  Matthew,  as 
one  of  the  apostles,  is  more  likely  to  have  heard  the  narrative  immediately 
from  the  lips  of  Christ- — give  greater  weight  to  the  order  which  he  adopts. 

Jesus  had  conquered  and  rejected  the  first  temptation  by  the  expres- 
sion of  an  absolute  trust  in  God.  Adapting  itself,  therefore,  with  infinite 
subtlety  to  the  discovered  mood  of  the  Saviour's  soul,  the  next  tempta- 
tion challenging  as  it  were  directly,  and  appealing  immediately  to,  this 
absolute  trust,  claims  the  illustration  and  expression  of  it,  not  to  relieve 
an  immediate  necessity,  but  to  avert  an  overwhelming  peril.  "Then  he 
brought  Him  to  the  Holy  City,^  and  setteth  Him  on  the  pinnacle  of  the 
Temple."^     Some  well-known  pinnacle  of    that  well-known  mass    must  be 

1  Milton  in  the  Paradise  Regaitud  may  have  been  influenced  to  prefer  the  order  as  given  in  St.  Luke, 
partly  from  this  reason,  and  partly  from  the  supposition  that  angels  rescued  our  Lord  in  safety  from  that 
dizzy  height. 

2  Still  called  by  the  Arabs  El-KUds  esh-Shereef,  "  the  Holy,  the  Noble." 

J  Matt.  iv.  5.     The  articie  is  used  in  both  Evangelists,  and  both  times  omitted  by  the  English  version. 
"So  saying,  he  caught  Him  up,  and  without  wing 
Of  hippogrif,  bore  through  the  air  sublime 
Over  the  wilderness,  and  o'er  the  plain, 
Till  underneath  them  fair  Jerusalem, 
The  Holy  City,  lifted  high  her  towers, 
And  higher  yet  t/u  glorious  Umple  reared 
Her  pile,  far  off  appearing  like  a  mount 
Of  alabaster,  topt  with  golden  spires. 
There,  on  the  highest  pinnacle,  he  set 
''"h?  Son  of  God." — Milton,  Par.  /Heg.  iv.  462. 
These  journeys  through  the  air  (though  the  sacred  narrative  says  nothing  of  them,  clearly  thereby  tending 
to  turn  our  attention  wholly  from  the  mere  secondary  accidents  and  external  form  of  the  story  to  its  inmost 
8 


1 14  iHE  PillNCl!.  OF  GLORY. 

intended ;  perhaps  the  roof  of  the  Stoa  Basilikl,  or  Royal  Porch,  on  the 
southern  side  of  the  Temple,  which  looked  down  sheer  into  the  valley 
of  the  Kidron  below  it,  from  a  height  so  djzzy  that,  according  to  the 
description  of  Josephus,  if  any  one  ventured  to  look  down,  his  head 
would  swim  at  the  immeasurable  depth  ;  perhaps  Solomon's  Porch,  the 
Stoa  Anatolike,  which  Josephus  also  has  described,  and  from  which,  ac- 
cording to  tradition,  St.  James,  the  Lord's  brother,  was  afterwards  pre 
cipitated  into  the  court  below. 

"If" — -again  that  doubt,  as  though  to  awake  a  spirit  of  pride,  in 
the  exercise  of  that  miraculous  display  to  which  He  is  tempted — "if 
thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  cast  Thyself  down."  Thou  art  in  danger  not 
self-sought  ;  save  Thyself  from  it,  as  Thou  canst  and  mayest,  and  thereby 
prove  Thy  Divine  power  and  nature.  Is  it  not  written  that  the  angels 
shall  bear  Thee  up?"  Will  not  this  be  a  splendid  proof  of  Thy  trust 
in  God  ? "  Thus  deep  and  subtle  was  this  temptation  ;  and  thus,  since 
Jesus  had  appealed  to  Scripture,  did  the  devil  also  "  quote  Scripture  for 
his  purpose."  For  there  was  nothing  vulgar,  nothing  selfish,  nothing 
sensuous  in  this  temptation.  It  was  an  appeal,  not  to  natural  appetites, 
but  to  perverted  spiritual  instincts.  Does  not  the  history  of  sects,  and 
parties,  and  churches,  and  men  of  high  religious  claims,  show  us  that 
thousands  who  could  not  sink  into  the  slough  of  sensuality,  have  yet 
thrust  themselves  arrogantly  into  needless  perils,  and  been  dashed  into 
headlong  ruin  from  the  pinnacle  of  spiritual  pride  ?  And  how  cahn,  yet 
full  of  warning,  was  that  simple  answer,  "  It  is  written  again.  Thou  shalt 
not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God."  The  word  in  the  original  (jKnupaatii 
— Matt.  iv.  7 ;  Deut.  vi.  16)  is  stronger  and  more  expressive.  It  is, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  to  the  extreme  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  "  thou  shalt 
not,  as  it  were,  presume  on  all  that  He  can  do  for  thee  ;  thou  shalt  not 
claim  His  miraculous  intervention  to  save  thee  from  thine  own  presump- 
tion and  folly;  thou  shalt  not  challenge  His  power  to  the  proof.  When 
thou  art  in  the  path  of  duty  trust  in  Him  to  the  utmost  with  a  perfect 
confidence  ;  but  listen  not  to  that  haughty  seductive  whisper,  "  Ye  shall 
be  as  gods,"  and  let  there  be  no  self-willed  and  capricious  irreverance  in 
thy  demand  for  aid.     Then — to    add  the  words  so  cunningly  omitted    by 

meaning)  were  thoroughly  in  accordance  with  ordinary  Jewish  beliefs  (i  Kings  xviii.  12;  2  Kings  ii.  16; 
Acts  viii.  39  ;  Ezek.  iii.  14).  See,  too,  the  apocryphal  addition  to  Habakku'::,  and  the  text  interpolated  in 
the  Ebionite  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  "My  mother  the  Holy  Ghost  took  m^  Ly  a  hair  of  the  head,  and  car- 
ried me  to  Mount  Tabor." 

I   Ps.  xci.  II,  12. 


THE  TEMPTATION.  1 15 

the  tempter — "shalt  thou  be  safe  in  all  thy  ways."'  And  Jesus  does 
not  even  allude  to  His  apparent  danger.  Danger  not  self-sought  is 
safety.  The  tempter's  own  words  had  been  a  confession  of  his  own 
impotence — "Cast  Thyself  down."  Even  from  that  giddy  height  he  had 
no  power  to  hurl  Him  whom  God  kept  safe.  The  Scripture  which  he  had 
quoted  was  true,  though  he  had  perverted  it.  No  amount  of  temptation 
can  ever  necessitate  a  sin.  With  every  temptation  God  provides  also 
"ike  way  to  escape." 

"  '  Also,  it  is  written. 
Tempt  not  the  Lord  thy  God,'  He  said,  and  stood  : 
But  Satan,  smitten  by  amazement,  fell." 

3.  Foiled  in  his  appeal  to  natural  hunger,  or  to  the  possibility  of 
spiritual  pride,  the  tempter  appealed  to  "  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds," 
and  staked  all  on  one  splendid  cast.  He  makes  up  for  the  want  of  sub- 
tlety in  the  form  by  the  apparent  magnificence  of  the  issue.  From  a  high 
mountain  he  showed  Jesus  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
of  them,  and  as  the  xoGiAoxparcop,  the  "prince  of  this  world,"  he  offered 
them  all  to  Him  who  had  lived  as  the  village  carpenter,  in  return  for 
one  expression  of  homage,  one  act  of  acknowledgment.' 

"The  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them!"  "  There  are 
some  that  will  say,"  says  Bishop  Andrewes,  "  that  we  are  never  tempted 
with  kingdoms.  It  may  well  be,  for  it  needs  not  be,  when  less  will  serve. 
It  was  Christ  only  that  was  thus  tempted  ;  in  Him  lay  an  heroical  mind 
that  could  not  be  tempted  with  small  matters.  But  with  us  it  is  nothing 
so,  for  we  esteem  more  basely  of  ourselves.  We  set  our  wares  at  a  very 
easy  price  ;  he  may  buy  us  even  dagger-cheap.  He  need  never  carry  us 
so  high  as  the  mount.  The  pinnacle  is  high  enough ;  yea,  the  lowest 
steeple  in  all  the  town  would  serve  the  turn.  Or  let  him  but  carry  us 
to  the  leads  and  gutters  of  our  own  houses  ;  nay,  let  us  but  stand  in  our 
windows  or  our  doors,  if  he  will  give  us  so    much    as  we    can  there  see, 

he  will  tempt  us  throughly ;  we  will  accept  it,  and  thank  him  too 

A  matter  of  half-a-crown,  or  ten  groats,  a  pair  of  shoes,  or  some  such 
trifle,  will  bring  us  on  our  knees  to  the  devil." 

But  Christ  taught,  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?" 

1  Ps.  xci.  II,  12.  As  the  psalm  is  addressed  to  "  Him  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most 
High,"  the  expression  "  all  thy  ways"  can  only  mean  ways  of  innocence  and  holiness — the  ways  of  God's 
providence.  The  only  true  meaning  of  the  text  therefore  excludes  the  insolent  gloss  put  on  it  by  the 
tempter  ;  and  he  omits  %'erse  13,  which  is  a  prophecy  of  his  own  defeat. 

2  See  John  xii.  31  ;  xvi.  2 — 30  ;  Eph.  ii.  2  ;  Cor.  iv.  4. 


u6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

There  was  one  living  who,  scarcely  in  a  figure,  might  be  said  to  have 
the  whole  world.  The  Roman  Emperor  Tiberius  was  at  that  moment 
infinitely  the  most  powerful  of  living  men,  the  absolute,  undisputed,  dei- 
fied ruler  of  all  that  was  fairest  and  richest  in  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 
There  wa»  no  control  to  his  power,  no  limit  to  his  wealth,  no  restraint 
upon  his  pleasures.  And  to  yield  himself  still  more  unreservedly  to  the 
boundless  self-gratification  of  voluptuous  luxury,  not  long  after  this  time 
he  chose  for  himself  a  home  on  one  of  the  loveliest  spots  on  the  earth's 
surface,  under  the  shadow  of  the  slumbering  volcano,  upon  an  enchanting 
islet  in  one  of  the  most  softly  delicious  climates  of  the  world.  What  came 
of  it  all  ?  He  was,  as  Pliny  calls  him,  "  tristissimus  ut  constat  hominum," — 
"confessedly  the  most  gloomy  of  mankind."  And  there,  from  this  home 
of  his  hidden  infamies,  from  this  island  where  on  a  scale  so  splendid  he  had 
tried  the  experiment  of  what  happiness  can  be  achieved  by  pressing  the 
world's  most  absolute  authority,  and  the  world's  guiltiest  indulgences,  into 
the  service  of  an  exclusively  selfish  life,  he  wrote  to  his  servile  and  cor- 
rupted Senate,  "What  to  write  to  you.  Conscript  Fathers,  or  how  to 
write,  or  what  not  to  write,  may  all  the  gods  and  goddesses  destroy  me  worse 
than  I  feel  that  they  are  daily  destroying  me,  if  I  know."  Rarely  has  there 
been  vouchsafed  to  the  world  a  more  overwhelming  proof  that  its  richest 
gifts  are  but  "  fairy  gold  that  turns  to  dust  and  dross,"  and  its  most 
colossal  edifices  of  personal  splendor  and  greatness  no  more  durable  bar- 
rier against  the  encroachment  of  bitter  misery  than  are  the  babe's  sand- 
heaps  to  stay  the  mighty  march  of  the  Atlantic  tide. 

But  he  who  is  an  inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  lord  over 
vaster  and  more  real  worlds,  infinitely  happy  because  infinitely  pure. 
And  over  that  kingdom  Satan  has  no  power.  It  is  the  kingdom  of 
God;  and  since  from,  Satan  not  even  the  smallest  semblance  of  any  of 
his  ruinous  gifts  can  be  gained  except  by  suffering  the  soul  to  do  alle- 
giance to  him,  the  answer  to  all  his  temptations  is  the  answer  of  Christ, 
"  Get  the  behind  me,  Satan :  for  it  is  written.  Thou  shall  worship  the 
Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only  shalt  thou  serve."" 

Thus  was  Christ  victorious,  through  that  self-renunciation  by  which 
only  victory  can  be  won.  And  the  moments  of  such  honest  struggle 
crowned  with  victory  are  the  very  sweetest  and  happiest  that  the  life  of 
man    can    give.      They    are    full    of    an    elevation    and    a    delight    which 

I  Deut.  vi.  13.  This  being  one  of  St.  Matthew's  "  cyclic  "  quotations  agrees  mainly  with  the  LXX., 
and  is  not  close  to  the  Hebrew;  but  his  '-peculiar"  quotations  are  usually  from  the  Hebrew,  and  Hiffer 
from  the  LXX.     It  is  remarkable  that  our  Lord's  three  answers  are  all  from  Deut.  vi.  and  viii. 


THE  TEMPTATION.  1 17 

can    only    be    described    in    language    borrowed    from    the    imagery    of 
heaven. 

"Then  the  devil  leaveth  Him  "—St.  Luke  adds,   "  till  a  fitting  oppor- 
tunity " — "and,  behold,  angels  came  and  ministered  unto   Him."' 

I  The  reader  will  be  glad  to  see,  in  connection  with  this  subject,  some  of  the  remarks  of  UUmann,  who 
has  studied  it  more  profoundly,  and  written  on  it  more  beautifully,  than  any  other  theologian.  "  The  posi- 
tive temptations  of  Jesus,"  he  says,  "  were  not  confined  to  that  particular  point  of  time  when  they  assailed 
Him  with  concentrated  force.  .  .  But  still  more  frequently  in  after  life  was  He  called  to  endure  tempta- 
tion of  the  other  kind — the  temptation  of  suffering,  and  this  culminated  on  two  occasions,  viz.,  in  the  con- 
flict of  Gethsemane,  and  in  that  moment  of  agony  on  the  cross  when  He  cried,  '  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me?  '  "  (Sinlessness  0/  Jesus,  E.  Tr.,  p.  140.)  He  had  already  remarked  (p.  12S)  that  "  man  is 
exposed  in  two  ways  to  the  possibility  and  seductive  power  of  evil.  On  the  one  hand  he  may  be  drawn  to 
actual  sin  by  enticements  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  may  be  turned  aside  from  good  by  threatened  as 
well  as  by  inflicted  suffering.  The  former  may  be  termed  positive,  the  latter  negative,  temptation." 
"  Jesus  was  tempted  in  all  points — that  is.  He  was  tempted  in  the  only  two  possible  ways  specified  above. 
On  the  one  hand,  allurements  were  presented  which,  if  successful,  would  have  led  Him  to  actual  sin  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  He  was  beset  by  sufferings  which  might  have  turned  Him  aside  from  the  divine 
path  of  duty.  These  temptations,  moreover,  occur  both  on  great  occasions  and  in  minute  particulars, 
under  the  most  varied  circumstances,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  His  earthly  course.  But  in 
the  midst  of  them  all  His  spiritual  energy  and  His  love  to  God  remained  pure  and  unimpaired " 
(id.,  p.   30). 

Ewald,  regarding  the  Temptation  from  the  point  of  view  of  public  work,  makes  the  three  temptations 
correspond  severally  to  the  tendencies  to  (i.)  unscrupulousness,  (ii.)  rash  confidence,  (iii.)  unhallowed  per- 
sonal ambitions. 


CHAPTER   X. 


THE     FIRST     APOSTLES. 


"Unless  He   had   had  in  His  countenance  also,  and  His  eyes,  something  starry,  the  Apostles  would 
never  have  instantly  followed  Him  ;  nor  would  those  have  fallen  to  the  ground  who  had  come  to  arrest  Him." 
^  — Jerome. 

ICTORIOUS     over     that      concentrated       tempta- 
tion,   safe    from    the    fiery    ordeal,    the    Saviour 
left  the  wilderness  and  returned  to  the  fords  of 
;    Jordan.' 

-N  The  Synoptical  Gospels,  which  dwell  mainly 

on  the  ministry  in    Galilee,  and  date    its    active 
commencement  from  the  imprisonment  of  John, 
omit  all  record  of   the  intermediate  events,  and 
only  mention    our    Lord's    retirement    to    Naza- 
reth."    It    is    to    the    fourth  Evangelist  that  we 
owe  the    beautiful   narrative  of    the  days  which 
immediately   ensued    upon    the    temptation.       The    Judean 
ministry  is  brought  by  him  into  the  first  prominence.^     He 
seems  to  have  made  a  point  of    relating  nothing  of  which 
he  had  not  been  a  personal  witness,  and    there    are    some 

1  It  is  well  known  that  "  Bethania,"  not  "  Bethabara,"  is  the  true  reading  of  John  i.  28  ;  it  was  altered 
by  Origen  (who  admits  that  it  was  the  reading  of  nearly  all  the  MSS.)  on  very  insufficient  grounds,  viz., 
that  no  Bethany  on  the  Jordan  was  known,  and  that  there  was  said  to  be  a  Bethabara,  where  John  was  said 
to  have  baptized.  Origen  is,  however,  supported  by  Cureton's  Syriac.  The  two  names  ("  house  of  pas- 
sage," and  "  house  of  ship,"  or  ferry-boats)  have  much  the  same  meaning  (see  2  Sam.  xv.  23,  Heb.).  Mr. 
Grove  thinks  that  Bethabara  may  be  identical  with  Beth-barah,  the  fords  secured  by  the  Ephraimites 
(Judg.  vii.  24),  or  with  Beth-nimrah  (Numb,  xxxii.  36).  This  latter  answers  to  the  description,  being  close 
to  the  region  round  about  Jordan,  the  Ciccar  of  the  O.  T.,  the  oasis  of  Jericho.  Mr.  Monro  ingeniously 
suggests  that  Origen  (like  his  copyists)  may  have  confused  Bethabara  with  Betharaba  (Josh,  xviii.  22), 
which  was  in  the  Jordan  valley.  After  careful  attention,  I  see  no  grounds  whatever  for  agreeing  with 
Caspar!  and  others  who  place  this  Bethania  at  Tellanihje,  on  the  upper  Jordan,  to  the  north-east  of  the 
Sea  of  Gcnnesareth.  The  reasons  for  the  traditional  scene  of  the  baptism,  near  Jericho,  and  therefore 
within  easy  reach  of  Jerusalem,  seem  far  more  convincing. 

2  Matt.  iv.  12  ;  Mark  i.  14  ;  Luke  iv.  14. 

3  Throughout  this  book  it  will  be  seen  that  I  accept  unhesitatingly  the  genuineness  of  St.  John'* 
Gospel.  It  would  be  of  course  impossible,  and  is  no  part  of  my  purpose,  to  enter  fully  into  the  controversy 
about  it ;  and  it  is  the  more  needless,  because  in  many  books  of  easy  access  (I  may  mention,  among  others, 
Professor  Westcott's  Jntrod.  to  the  SluJy  of  the  Gospels,  and  Hist,  of  tJie  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  and  Mr. 
Sunday's  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel)  the  main  arguments  which  seem  decisive  in  favor  of  its  genuine- 
ness may  be  studied  by  any  one.     The  other  side  is  powerfully  argued  by  Mr.  Tayler  in  his  Fourth  Gospel, 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  1 19 

few  indications  that  he  was  bound  to  Jerusalem  by  peculiar  relations.' 
By  station  St.  John  was  a  fisherman,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that,  as 
the  fish  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee  were  sent  in  large  quantities  to  Jerusa- 
lem, he  may  have  lived  there  at  certain  seasons  in  connection  with  the 
employment  of  his  father  and  his  brother,  who,  as  the  owners  of  their 
own  boat  and  the  masters  of  hired  servants,  evidently  occupied  a 
position  of  some  importance.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  St.  John  alone 
who  narrates  to  us  the  first  call  of  the  earliest  Apostles,  and  he  re- 
lates it  with  all  the  minute  particulars  and  graphic  touches  of  one 
on  whose  heart  and  memory  each  incident  had  been  indelibly 
impressed. 

The    deputation     of    the    Sanhedrin-     (to     which     we     have    already 
alluded)  seems  to  have  taken  place  the  day  previous  to   our   Lord's  return 

All  that  I  need  here  say  (referring  especially  to  what  Professor  Westcott  has  written  on  the  subject)  is,  that 
there  is  ^jr/irrKa/ evidence  for  its  authenticity  in  the  allusions  to  or  traces  of  the  injltunce  of  this  Gospel  in  Ig- 
natius and  Polycarp  ;  and  later  in  the  second  century,  of  Justin  Martyr,  Tatian,  Theophilus,  &c.  Papias 
does  not  indeed  mention  it,  which  is  a  circumstance  difficult  to  account  for  ;  but  according  to  Eusebius, 
he  "  made  use  of  testimonies  "  out  of  the  First  Epistles,  and  few  will  separate  the  question  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Epistles  from  that  of  the  genuineness'of  the  Gospel.  The  very  slightness  of  the  Second  and 
Third  Epistles  is  almost  a  convincing  proof  of  their  authenticitj-,  since  no  one  could  have  dreamed  of 
forging  them.  The  early  admission  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  into  the  canon  both  of  the  East  and  West,  and 
the  acknowledgment  of  it  even  by  heretics,  are  additional  arguments  in  its  favor.  Dr.  Lightfoot  also 
notices  the  further  fact  that  "  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century  divergent  readings  of  a  strik- 
ing kind  occur  in  St.  John's  Gospel,"  and  this  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  "  that  the  text  has  already  a  his- 
tory, and  that  the  Gospel  therefore  cannot  have  been  very  recent."  But  if  the  external  evidence, 
though  less  decisive  than  we  could  have  desired,  is  not  inadequate,  the  internal  evidence,  derived  not  only 
from  its  entire  scope,  but  also  from  numberless  minute  and  incidental  particulars,  is  simply  overwhelm- 
ing ;  and  the  improbabilities  involved  in  the  hypothesis  of  forgery  are  so  immense,  that  it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  we  should  have  recognized  in  the  Gospel  the  authorship  of  St.  John,  even  if  it  had  come 
down  to  us  anonymously,  or  under  some  other  name.  The  Hebraic  coloring;  of  the  style  ;  the  traces  of 
distinctly  Judaic  training  and  conceptions  (i.  45  ;  iv.  22) ;  the  naive  faithfulness  in  admitting  facts  which 
might  seem  to  tell  most  powerfully  against  the  writer's  belief  (vii.  5)  ;  the  minute  topographical  and  per- 
sonal allusions  and  reminiscences  (vi.  10,  ig,  23  ;  x.  22,  23  ;  xi.  i,  44,  54  ;  xxi.  2) ;  the  faint  traces  that  the 
writer  had  been  a  disciple  of  John  the  Baptist,  whose  title  he  alone  omits  (i.  15  ;  iii.  23,  25)  ;  the  vivid 
freshness  of  the  style  throughout,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  account  of  the  blind  man,  and  of  the  Last  Sup- 
per— so  wholly  unlike  a  philosopheme  ;  the  preservation  of  the  remarkable  fact  that  Jesus  was  first  tried 
belore  Annas  (xviii.  13,  ig — 24),  and  the  correction  of  the  current  tradition  as  to  the  time  of  the  Last  Sup- 
per (xiii.  I  ;  xviii.  2S)  ; — -these  are  but  a  few  of  numberless  internal  evidences  which  bring  additional  con- 
firmation to  the  conviction  inspired  by  the  character  and  contents  of  this  great  Gospel.  They  have  left  no 
doubt  on  the  minds  of  many  profound  and  competent  scholars,  and  no  one  can  easily  make  light  of  evi- 
dence which  has  satisfied  such  a  philologian  as  Ewald,  and,  for  twelve  editions  of  his  book,  satisfied  even 
such  a  critic  as  Renan.  It  is  my  sincere  belief  that  the  difficulties  of  accepting  the  Gospel  are  mainly 
superficial,  and  that  they  are  infinitely  less  formidable  than  those  involved  in  its  rejection.  Mr.  Sanday 
has  treated  the  question  with  great  impartiality  ;  and  in  his  volume  many  of  the  points  touched  upon  in 
this  note  are  developed  with  much  force  and  skill. 

1  John  xix.  27  ;  xviii.  16.  Perhaps  this  explains  the  fact  that  James  was  not  with  his  brother  John 
as  a  disciple  of  the  Baptist.  Andrew,  on  finding  Christ,  immediately  sought  out  his  brother  Simon. 
John  could  not  do  so,  for  his  brother  was  in  Galilee,  and  was  not  called  till  some  time  subsequently. 

2  John  i.  19 — 34. 


I20  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

from  the  wiiuerness  ;  and  when,  on  the  following  morning,'  the  Baptist  saw 
Jesus  approaching,  he  delivered  a  public  and  emphatic  testimony  that 
this  was  indeed  the  Messiah  who  had  been  marked  out  to  him  by 
the  appointed  sign,  and  that  He  was  "  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh 
away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Whether  the  prominent  conception  in  the 
Baptist's  mind  was  the  Paschal  Lamb,  or  the  Lamb  of  the  morning  and 
evening  sacrifice  ;  whether  "the  world  "  (xoV/io?)  was  the  actual  expression 
which  he  used,  or  is  merely  a  Greek  rendering  of  the  word  "  people " 
(Dy)  ;  whether  he  understood  the  profound  and  awful  import  of  his  own 
utterance,  or  was  carried  by  prophetic  inspiration  beyond  himself — we 
cannot  tell.  But  this  much  is  clear,  that  since  his  whole  imagery,  and 
indeed  the  very  description  of  his  own  function  and  position,  is,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  borrowed  from  the  Evangelical  prophet,  he  must  have 
used  the  expression  with  distinct  reference  to  the  picture  of  Divine  patience 
and  mediatorial  suffering  in  Isa.  liii.  7  (cf.  Jer.  xi.  19).  His  words  could 
hardly  have  involved  less  meaning  than  this — that  the  gentle  and  sinless 
man  to  whom  he  pointed  should  be  a  man  of  sorrows,  and  that  these 
sorrows  should  be  for  the  salvation  of  his  race.  Whatever  else  the  words 
may  have  connoted  so  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  yet  they  could  hardly 
have  thought  them  over  without  connecting  Jesus  with  the  conceptions 
of  sinlessness,  of  suffering,  and  of  a  redeeming  work.  ^ 

Memorable  as  this  testimony  was,  it  seems  on  the  first  day  to  have 
produced  no  immediate  result.  But  on  the  second  day,  when  the  Baptist 
was  standing  accompanied  by  two  of  his  disciples,  Jesus  again  walked  by, 
and  John,  fixing  upon  Him  his  intense  and  earnest  gaze,  exclaimed 
again,  as  though  with  involuntary  awe  and  admiration,  "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God  !" 

The  words  were  too  remarkable  to  be  again  neglected,  and  the  two 
Galilean  youths  who  heard  them  followed  the  retreating  figure  of  Jesus. 
He  caught  the  sound  of  their  timid  footsteps,  and  turning  round  to  look 
at  them  as  they  came  near,  he  gently  asked,   "What  seek  ye?" 

It  was  but  the  very  beginning  of  His    ministry  :  as    yet   they    coul.l 
not    know    Him    for    all    that   He    was; 'as    yet  they  had  not  heard  t".. 
gracious  words  that  proceeded  out  of  His  lips  ;  in    coming   to  seek  Him 

1  John  i.  35 — 43.  "  I  knew  him  not."  means  that  the  Baptist  did  not  recognize  Jesus  as  the  Messiah, 
till  he  had  seen  the  heavenly  sign. 

2  Even  if,  as  some  suppose,  St.  John  the  Evangelist  was  His  first  cousin.  The  argument  for  supposing 
that  Salome,  the  wife  of  Zebedee,  was  a  sister  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  arises  from  the  comparison  of  Mark  xv. 
40  with  John  xix.  25,  where /nur  women  are  mentioned  ;  but  John,  with  his  usual  delicate  reserve,  doe* 
not  mention  his  own  mother  by  name. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  121 

thus  they  might  be  actuated  by  inadequate  motives,  or  by  mere  passing 
curiosity  ;  it  was  fit  that  they  should  come  to  Him  by  spontaneous 
impulse,  and  declare  their  object  of  their  own  free  will. 

But  how  deep  and  full  of  meaning  is  that  question,  and  how  sternly 
it  behooves  all  who  come  to  their  Lord  to  answer  it  !  One  of  the  holiest 
of  the  Church's  saints,  St.  Bernard,  was  in  the  habit  of  constantly  warn- 
ing himself  by  the  solemn  query,  "  Bernarde,  ad  quid  vcnisti  ? " — 
"  Bernard,  for  what  purpose  art  thou  here  ? "  Self-examination  could 
assume  no  more  searching  form  ;  but  all  the  meaning  which  it  involved 
was  concentrated  in  that  quiet  and  simple    question,    "What    seek    ye?" 

It  was  more  than  the  two  young  Galileans  could  answer  Him  at 
once ;  it  meant  more  perhaps  than  they  knew  or  understood,  yet  the 
answer  showed  that  they  were  in  earnest.  "  Rabbi,"  they  said  (and  the 
title  of  profound  honor  and  reverence  '  showed  how  deeply  His  presence 
had  impressed  them),   "where  art  thou  staying?" 

Where  it  was  we  do  not  know.  Perhaps  in  one  of  the  temporary 
succdth,  or  booths,  covered  at  the  top  with  the  striped  abba,  which  is  in 
the  East  an  article  of  ordinary  wear,  and  with  their  wattled  sides  inter- 
woven with  green  branches  of  terebinth  or  palm,  which  must  have  given 
the  only  shelter  possible  to  the  hundreds  who  had  flocked  to  John's 
baptism.  "  He  saith  to  them.  Come  and  see."  Again,  the  words  were 
very  simple,  though  they  occur  in  passages  of  much  significance.'  Never, 
however,  did  they  produce  a  result  more  remarkable  than  now.  They 
came  and  saw  where  Jesus  dwelt,  and  as  it  was  then  foar  in  the  afternoon,^ 
stayed  there  that  day,  and  probably  slept  there  that  night  ;  and  before 
they  lay  down  to  sleep  they  knew  and  felt  in  their  inmost  hearts  that 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  had  come,  that  the  hopes  of  long  centuries  were 
now  fulfilled,  that  they  had  been  in  the  presence  of  Him  who  was  the 
desire  of  all  nations,  the  Priest  greater  than  Aaron,  the  Prophet  greater 
than  Moses,  the  King  greater  than  David,  the  true  Star  of  Jacob  and 
Scepter  of  Israel. 

1  Among  the  Jews  this  title  was  a  sort  of  degree.  One  of  the  myriads  of  idle  conjectures  which  have 
defaced  the  simple  narrative  of  the  Gospels  is  that  Jesus  had  taken  this  degree  among  the  Essenes.  It  is 
clear,  on  the  one  hand,  that  He  never  sought  it  ;  and,  on  the  other,  that  it  was  bestowed  upon  Him  even  by 
the  most  eminent  Pharisees  (John  iii.  2)  out  of  spontaneous  and  genuine  awe. 

2  John  xi.  34  ;  Cant.  iii.  11  ;  Rev.  vi.  i,  3,  5,  7  ;  Ps.  Ixvi.  5,  &c. 

3  The  tenth  hour  counting  from  six  in  the  morning  ;  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing,  with  Wieseler, 
that  John  counts  from  midnight,  instead  of  adopting  the  ordinary  Jewish  computation  (John  iv.  6,  52  ;  xi. 
9 ;  xix.  14).  Wieseler  seems  even  to  be  mistaken  in  the  belief  that  the  Romans  ever  counted  the  hours  of 
their  civil  day  from  midnight. 


122  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

One  of  those  two  youths  who  thus  came  earHest  to  Christ  was 
Andrew."  The  other  suppressed  his  own  name  because  he  was  the  nar- 
rator, the  beloved  disciple,  the  Evangelist  St.  John.'  No  wonder  that 
the  smallest  details,  down  even  to  the  very  hour  of  the  day,  were 
treasured  in  his  memory,  never  to  be  forgotten,  even  in  extreme  old 
age. 

It  was  the  first  care  of  Andrew  to  find  his  brother  Simon,  and  tell 
him  of  this  great  Eureka.^  He  brought  him  to  Jesus,  and  Jesus,  look- 
ing earnestly  on  him  with  that  royal  gaze  which  read  intuitively  the 
inmost  thoughts — seeing  at  a  glance  in  that  simple  fisherman  all  the 
weakness  but  also  all  the  splendid  greatness  of  the  man — said,  giving 
him  a  new  name,  which  was  long  afterwards  yet  more  solemnly  confirmed, 
"Thou  art  Simon,  the  son  of  Jona  ;  thou  shalt  be  called  Kephas ; "  that 
is,  "Thou  art  Simon,  the  son  of  the  dove;  hereafter  thou  shalt  be  as 
the  rock  in  which  the  dove  hides." 

How  was  it  that  these  youths  of  Galilee,  how  was  it  that  a  John 
so  fervid  yet  contemplative,  a  Peter  so  impetuous  in  his  affections  yet 
so  timid  in  his  resolves,  were  thus  brought  at  once — brought,  as  it  were, 
by  a  single  look,  by  a  single  word — to  the  Saviour's  feet?  How  came 
they  thus,  by  one  flash  of  insight  or  of  inspiration,  to  recognize,  in  the 
carpenter  of  Nazareth,  the  Messiah  of  prophecy,  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  ? 

Doubtless  in  part  by  what  He  said,  and  By  what  John  the  Baptist 
had  testified  concerning  Him,  but  doubtless  also  in  part  by  His  very 
look.  On  this  subject,  indeed,  tradition  has  varied  in  a  most  remark- 
able manner;  but  on  a  point  of  so  much  interest  we  may  briefly 
pause. 

Any  one  who  has  studied  the  representations  of  Christ  in  mediaeval 
art  will  have  observed  that  some  of  them,  particularly  in  missals,  are  de- 
gradingly  and  repulsively  hideous,  while  others  are  conceived  in  the 
softest  and  loveliest  ideal  of  human  beauty.  Whence  came  this  singular 
divergence  ? 

1  Hence  the  Fathers  always  speak  of  him  as  "the  first-called." 

2  This  exquisite  and  consistent  reticence  is  one  of  the  many  strong  arguments  in  favor  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  Gospel.  If  our  view  be  right,  he  did  care  about  the  facts  of  which  he  is  writing, 
but  did  not  care  that  his  mere  name  should  be  remembered  among  men.  M.  Renan  seems  at  onetime 
to  have  held  that  it  was  partly  written  out  of  jealousy  at  the  primacy  popularly  ascribed  to  St.  Peter  ! 

3  John  i.  42.  This  was  indeed  a  true  act  of  brotherly  aflfcction.  It  is  strange  that  no  one  should 
have  alluded  (so  far  as  I  have  seen)  to  the  reason  why  St.  John  could  not  then  perform  for  his  brother  the 
same  great  service.  The  reason  probably  is  that  James  was  at  the  time  quietly  pursuing  his  calling  by  the 
Sea  of  Galilee. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  1 23 

It  came  from  the  prophetic  passages  which  were  supposed  to  indi- 
cate the  appearance  of  the  Messiah,  as  well  as  His  life. 

The  early  Church,  accustomed  to  the  exquisite  perfection  of  form 
in  which  the  genius  of  heathen  sculpture  had  clothed  its  conceptions  of 
the  younger  gods  of  Olympus — aware,  too,  of  the  fatal  corruptions  of  a 
sensual  imagination — seemed  to  find  a  pleasure  in  breaking  loose  from 
this  adoration  of  personal  endowments,  and  in  taking  as  their  ideal  of 
the  bodily  aspect  of  our  Lord,  Isaiah's  picture  of  a  patient  and  afflicted 
sufferer,  or  David's  pathetic  description  of  a  smitten  and  wasted  outcast.' 
His  beauty,  says  Clemens  of  Alexandria,  was  in  his  soul  and  in  His  actions, 
but  in  appearance  He  was  base.  Justin  Martyr  describes  Him  as  being 
without  beauty,  without  glory,  without  honor.  His  body,  says  Origen, 
was  small,  and  ill-shapen,  and  ignoble.  "  His  body,"  says  TertulHan,  "had 
no  human  handsomeness,  much  less  any  celestial  splendor."  The  heathen 
Celsus,  as  we  learn  from  Origen,  even  argued  from  His  traditional  mean- 
ness and  ugliness  of  aspect  as  a  ground  for  rejecting  His  divine  origin. 
Nay,  this  kind  of  distorted  inference  went  to  even  greater  extremities. 
The  Vulgate  rendering  of  Isa.  liii.  4  is,  "  Nos  putavimus  eum  ^uasi /epro- 
sum,  percussum  a  Deo  et  humiliatum ; "  and  this  gave  rise  to  a  wide- 
spread fancy,  of  which  there  are  many  traces,  that  He  who  healed  so 
many  leprosies  was  himself  a  leper  ! 

Shocked,  on  the  other  hand,  by  these  revolting  fancies,  there  were 
many  who  held  that  Jesus,  in  His  earthly  features,  reflected  the  charm 
and  beauty  of  David,  His  great  ancestor ;  and  St.  Jerome  and  St. 
Augustine  preferred  to  apply  to  Him  the  words  of  Psalm  xlv.  2,  3,  "  Thou 
art  fairer  than  the  children  of  men."  It  was  natural  that,  in  the  absence 
of  positive  indications,  this  view  should  command  a  deeper  sympathy, 
and  it  gave  rise  both  to  the  current  descriptions  of  Christ,  and  also  to 
those  ideals,  so  full  of  mingled  majesty  and  tenderness  in — 

"  That  face 
How  beautiful,  if  sorrow  had  not  made 
Sorrow  more  beautiful  than  beauty's  self," 

which  we  see  in  the  great  pictures  of    Fra  Angelico,  of  Michael  Angelo, 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  of  Raphael,  and  of  Titian. 

Independently  of  all  tradition,  we  may  believe  with  reverent  convic- 
tion that  there  could  have  been  nothing  mean    or  repugnant — that  there 

I   Isa.  Hi.  14  ;  liii.  4,   "  We  did  esteem  him  slrickin  [Lev.  xiii.  13],  smitten  of  God,   and  afflicted."     Ps. 

xxii.  6,  7,  "  I  am  a  worm,  and  no  man All  they  that  see   me  laugh   me   to  scorn  ;"   15 — 17, 

"  My  strength  is  dried  up  like  a  potsherd I  may  tell  all  my  bones;  they   stand   staring  and 

lookinir  upon   me." 


124  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

must,  as  St.  Jerome  says,  have  been  "something  starry" — in  the  form 
which  enshrined  an  Eternal  Divinity  and  an  Infinite  Holiness.  All  true 
beauty  is  but  "  the  sacrament  of  goodness,"  and  a  conscience  so  stain- 
less, a  spirit  so  full  of  harmony,  a  life  so  purely  noble,  could  not  but 
express  itself  in  the  bearing,  could  not  but  be  reflected  in  the  face,  of 
the  Son  of    Man. 

We  do  not  indeed  find  any  allusion  to  this  charm  of  aspect,  as 
we  do  in  the  description  of  the  young  High-priest  Aristobulus  whom 
Herod  murdered;  but  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  do  we  find  in 
the  language  of  His  enemies  a  single  word  or  allusion  which  might 
have  been  founded  on  an  unworthy  appearance.  He  of  whom  John 
bore  witness  as  the  Christ — He  whom  the  multitude  would  gladly  have 
seized  that  He  might  be  their  king — He  whom  the  city  saluted  with 
triumphal  shouts  as  the  Son  of  David — He  to  whom  women  ministered 
with  such  deep  devotion,  and  whose  aspect,  even  in  the  troubled  images 
of  a  dream,  had  inspired  a  Roman  lady  with  interest  and  awe — He 
whose  mere  word  caused  Philip  and  Matthew  and  many  others  to  leave 
all  and  follow  Him — He  whose  one  glance  broke  into  an  agony  of  re- 
pentance the  heart  of  Peter — He  before  whose  presence  those  possessed 
with  devils  were  alternately  agitated  into  frenzy  and  calmed  into  repose, 
and  at  whose  question,  in  the  very  crisis  of  His  weakness  and 
betrayal,  His  most  savage  enemies  shrank  and  fell  prostrate  in  the 
moment  of  their  most  infuriated  wrath' — such  an  One  as  this  could 
not  have  been  without  the  personal  majesty  of  a  Prophet  and  a  Priest. 
All  the  facts  of  His  life  speak  convincingly  of  that  strength,  and 
endurance,  and  dignity,  and  electric  influence,  which  none  could  have 
exercised  without  a  large  share  of  human,  no  less  than  of  spiritual, 
gifts.  "  Certainly,"  says  St.  Jerome,  "  a  flame  of  fire  and  starry  brightness 
flashed  from  His  eye,  and  the  majesty  of  the  Godhead  shone  in  His 
face." 

The  third  day  after  the  return  from  the  wilderness  seems  to  have 
been  spent  by  Jesus  in  intercourse  with  His  new  disciples.  On  the 
fourth  day  he  wished  to  start'  for  his  return  to  Galilee,  and  on  the 
journey  fell  in  with  another  young  fisherman,  Philip  of  Bethsaida.  Alone 
of  the  Apostles,  Philip  had  a  Greek  name,  derived,  perhaps,  from  the 
tetrarch  Philip,  since  the  custom  of  naming  children  after  reigning  princes 

1  John  xviii.  6.     Cf.  Luke  iv.  30. 

2  In  using  the  phrase  it  is  evident  that  St.  John  had  in  his  mind  some  slight  circumstance  which  is 


unRnown  to  us. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  125 

has  always  been  a  common  one.'  If  so,  he  must  at  this  time  have  been 
under  thirty.  Possibly  his  Greek  name  indicates  his  familiarity  with 
some  of  the  Greek-speaking  population  who  lived  mingled  with  the 
Galileans  on  the  shores  of  Gennesareth ;  and  this  may  account  for  the 
fact  that  he,  rather  than  any  of  the  other  Apostles,  was  appealed  to  by 
the  Greeks  who,  in  the  last  week  of  His  life,  wished  to  see  our  Lord. 
One  word— the  one  pregnant  invitation,  "Follow  ?ne/" — was  sufficient  to 
attach  to  Jesus  for  ever  the  gentle  and  simple-minded  Apostle,  whom  in 
all  probability  He  had  previously  known. 

The  next  day  a  fifth  neophyte  was  added  to  that  sacred  and  happy 
band.  Eager  to  communicate  the  rich  discovery  which  he  had  made, 
Philip  sought  out  his  friend  Nathanael,  exercising  thereby  the  divinest 
prerogative  of  friendship,  which  consists  in  the  communication  to 
others  of  all  that  we  have  ourselves  experienced  to  be  most  divine. 
Nathanael,  in  the  list  of  Apostles,  is  generally,  and  almost  indubitably, 
identified  with  Bartholomew ;  for  Bartholomew  is  less  a  name  than  a  des- 
ignation— "Bar-Tolmal,  the  son  of  Tolmai ; "  and  while  Nathanael  is  only 
in  one  other  place  mentioned  under  this  name  (John  xxi.  2),  Bartholomew 
(of  whom,  on  any  other  supposition,  we  should  know  nothing  whatever) 
is,  in  the  list  of  Apostles,  almost  invariably  associated  with  Philip.  As 
his  home  was  at  Cana  of  Galilee,  the  son  of  Tolmai  might  easily 
have  become  acquainted  with  the  young  fisherman  of  Gennesareth.  And 
yet  so  deep  was  the  retirement  in  which  up  to  this  time  Jesus  had  lived 
His  life,  that  though  Nathanael  knew  Philip,  he  knew  nothing  of  Christ. 
The  simple  mind  of  Philip  seemed  to  find  a  pleasure  in  contrasting  the 
grandeur  of  His  office  with  the  meanness  of  His  birth:  "We  have 
found  Him  of  whom  Moses  in  the  Law,  and  the  Prophets,  did  write;" 
whom  think  you  ? — a  young  Herodian  prince  ? — a  young  Asmonean 
priest? — some  burning  light  from  the  schools  of  Shammai  or  Hillel? — 
some  passionate  young  Emir  from  the  followers  of  Judas  of  Gamala? — 
no,  but   "Jesus  0/  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Joseph." 

Nathanael  seems  to  have  felt  the  contrast.  He  caught  at  the  local 
designation.  It  may  be,  as  legend  says,  that  he  was  a  man  of  higher 
position  than  the  rest  of  the  Apostles.  It  has  been  usually  considered 
that  his  answer  was  proverbial ;  but  perhaps  it  was  a  passing  allusion  to 
the  word  nazora,  "despicable;"  or  it  may  merely  have  implied  "Nazareth, 

I  The  name  Andrew  is  of  Greek  origin,  but  Lightfoot  shows  that  it  was  in  use  among  the  Jews. 
Thomas  was  also  called  by  the  Greek  name  Didymus,  or  "Twin  :"  but  we  know  no  name  of  Philip  except 


this  Greek  one. 


126  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

that  obscure  and  ill-reputed  town  in  its  little  untrodden  valley — can  any- 
thing good  come  from  thence?"  The  answer  is  in  the  same  words  which 
our  Lord  had  addressed  to  John  and  Andrew.  Philip  was  an  apt  scholar, 
and  he  too  said,   ''Come  and  see." 

To-day,  too,  that  question — "  Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Naza- 
reth ?  " — is  often  repeated,  and  the  one  sufficient  answer — almost  the  only 
possible  answer — is  now,  as  it  then  was,  '' Come  and  see."  Then  it  meant, 
come  and  see  One  who  speaks  as  never  man  spake  ;  come  and  see  One 
who,  though  He  be  but  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth,  yet  overawes  the 
souls  of  all  who  approach  Him— seeming  by  His  mere  presence  to  reveal 
the  secrets  of  all  hearts,  yet  drawing  to  Him  even  the  most  sinful  with 
a  sense  of  yearning  love  ;  come  and  see  One  from  whom  there  seems  to 
breathe  forth  the  irresistible  charm  of  a  sinless  purity,  the  unapproachable 
beauty  of  a  Divine  life.  "  Come  and  see,"  said  Philip,  convinced  in  his 
simple  faithful  heart  that  to  see  Jesus  was  to  know  Him,  and  to  know 
was  to  love,  and  to  love  was  to  adore.  In  this  sense,  indeed,  we  can 
say  "  Come  and  see  "  no  longer  ;  for  since  the  blue  heavens  closed  on  the 
visions  which  were  vouchsafed  to  St.  Stephen  and  St.  Paul,  His  earthly 
form  has  been  visible  no  more.  But  there  is  another  sense,  no  less 
powerful  for  conviction,  in  which  it  still  suffices  to  say,  in  answer  to  all 
doubts,  "  Come  and  see."  Come  and  see  a  dying  world  revivified,  a  de- 
crepit world  regenerated,  an  aged  world  rejuvenescent  ;  come  and  see  the 
darkness  illuminated,  the  despair  dispelled ;  come  and  see  tenderness 
brought  into  the  cell  of  the  imprisoned  felon,  and  liberty  to  the  fettered 
slave ;  come  and  see  the  poor,  and  the  ignorant,  and  the  many,  emanci- 
pated for  ever  from  the  intolerable  thraldom  of  the  rich,  the  learned,  and 
the  few  ;  come  and  see  hospitals  and  orphanages  rising  in  their  perma- 
nent mercy  beside  the  crumbling  ruins  of  colossal  amphitheaters  which 
once  reeked  with  human  blood  ;  come  and  see  the  obscene  symbols  of 
an  universal  degradation  obliterated  indignantly  from  the  purified  abodes  ; 
come  and  see  the  dens  of  lust  and  tyranny  transformed  into  sweet  and 
happy  homes,  defiant  atheists  into  believing  Christians,  rebels  into  chil- 
dren, and  pagans  into  saints.  Aye,  come  and  see  the  majestic  acts  of  one 
great  drama  continued  through  nineteen  Christian  centuries  ;  and  as  you 
see  them  all  tending  to  one  great  development,  long  predetermined  in 
the  Council  of  the  Djvine  Will — as  you  learn  in  reverent  humility  that 
even  apparept  Chance  is  in  reality  the  daughter  of  Forethought,  as  well  as, 
for    those    who     thus    recognize    her    nature,     the    sister    of    Order   and 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  \2^ 

Persuasion — as  you  hear  the  voice  of  your  Saviour  searching,  with  the  loving 
accents  of  a  compassion  which  will  neither  strive  nor  cry,  your  very  reins 
and  heart — it  may  be  that  you  too  will  unlearn  the  misery  of  doubt, 
and  exclaim  in  calm  and-  happy  confidence,  with  the  pure  and  candid 
Nathanael,  "Rabbi,  thou  art  the  Son  of  God,  thou  art  the  King  of 
Israel !  " 

The  fastidious  reluctance  of  Nathanael  was  very  soon  dispelled. 
Jesus,  as  He  saw  him  coming,  recognized  that  the  seal  of  God  was 
upon  his  forehead,  and  said  of  him,  "  Behold  a  true  Israelite,  in  whom 
guile  is  not."  "Whence  dost  thou  recognize  me?"  asked  Nathanael; 
and  then  came  that  heart-searching  answer,  "  Before  that  Philip  called 
thee,  whilst  thou  wert  under  the  fig-tree,   I  saw  thee." 

It  was  the  custom  of  pious  Jews — a  custom  approved  by  the  Tal- 
mud— to  study  their  crishma,  or  office  of  daily  prayer,  under  a  fig-tree ; 
and  some  have  imagined  that  there  is  something  significant  in  the  fact 
of  the  Apostle  having  been  summoned  from  the  shade  of  a  tree  which 
symbolized  Jewish  ordinances  and  Jewish  traditions,  but  which  was  be- 
ginning already  to  cumber  the  ground.'  But  though  something  interest- 
ing and  instructive  may  often  be  derived  from  the  poetic  insight  of  a 
chastened  imagination  which  can  thus  observe  the  allegories  which  lie 
involved  in  the  simplest  facts,  yet  no  such  flash  of  sudden  perception 
could  alone  have  accounted  for  the  agitated  intensity  of  Nathanael's 
reply.  Every  one  must  have  been  struck,  at  first  sight,  with  the  apparent 
disproportionateness  between  the  cause  and  the  effect.  How  apparently 
inadequate  was  that  quiet  allusion  to  the  lonely  session  of  silent  thought 
under  the  fig-tree,  to  produce  the  instantaneous  adhesion,  the  henceforth 
inalienable  loyalty,  of  this  "fusile  Apostle"  to  the  Son  of  God,  the 
King  of  Israel !  But  for  the  true  explanation  of  this  instantaniety 
of  conviction,  we  must  look  deeper ;  and  then,  if  I  mistake  not,  we 
"shall  see  in  this  incident  another  of  those  indescribable  touches  of  reality 
which  have  been  to  so  many  powerful  minds  the  most  irresistible 
internal  evidence  to  establish  the  historic  truthfulness  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel. 

These  are  the  moments  when  the  grace  of  God  stirs  sensibly  in  the 
human  heart ;  when  the  soul  seems  to  rise  upon  the  eagle-wings  of  hope 
and  prayer  into  the  heaven  of  heavens ;  when,  caught  up,  as  it  were, 
into  God's  very  presence,  we  see  and  hear  things  unspeakable.     At  such 

I  See  I  Kings  iv.  25  ;   Mic.  iv.  4  ;  Zech.  iii.  10  ;  Matt.  xxi.  20;  Luke  xiii.  7. 


128  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

moments  we   live    a    lifetime ;    for    emotions    such    as    these  annihilate  all 
time ;  they — 

"  Crowd  Eternity  into  an  hour, 
Or  stretch  an  hour  into  Eternity." 

At  such  moments  we  are  nearer  to  God;  we  seem  to  know  Him  and 
be  known  of  Him ;  and  if  it  were  possible  for  any  man  at  such  a 
moment  to  see  into  our  souls,  he  would  know  all  that  is  gfreatest  and 
most  immortal  in  our  beings.  But  to  see  us  then  is  iinp()ssii)le  to  man  : 
it  is  possible  only  to  Him  whose  hand  should  lead,  whose  right  hand 
should  guide  us,  even  if  we  could  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and 
fly  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea.  And  such  a  crisis  of  emotion 
must  the  guileless  Israelite  have  known  as  he  sat  and  prayed  and 
mused  in  silence  under  his  fig-tree.  To  the  consciousness  of  such  a 
crisis — a  crisis  which  could  only  be  known  to  One  to  whom  it  was 
given  to  read  the  very  secrets  of  the  heart — our  Lord  appealed.  Let 
him  who  has  had  a  similar  experience  say  how  he  would  regard  a  living 
man  who  could  reveal  to  him  that  he  had  at  such  a  moment  looked 
into  and  fathomed  the  emotions  of  his  heart.  That  such  solitary 
musings — such  penetrating,  even  in  this  life,  "  behind  the  vail " — such 
raptures  into  the  third  heaven  during  which  the  soul  strives  to  tran- 
scend the  limitations  of  space  and  time  while  it  communes,  face  to  face, 
with  the  Eternal  and  the  Unseen — such  sudden  kindlings  of  celestial 
lightning  which  seem  to  have  fused  all  that  is  meanest  and  basest  within 
us  in  an  instant  and  for  ever — that  these  supreme  crises  are  among  the 
recorded  experiences  of  the  Christian  life,  rests  upon  indisputable  evi- 
dence of  testimony  and  of  fact.  And  if  any  one  of  my  readers  has 
ever  known  this  spasm  of  divine  change  which  annihilates  the  old  and 
in  the  same  moment  creates  or  re-creates  a  new-born  soul,  such  a  one. 
at  least,  will  understand  the  thrill  of  electric  sampathy,  the  arrow-point 
of  intense  conviction,  that  shot  that  very  instant  through  the  heart  of 
Nathanael,  and  brought  him,  as  it  were,  at  once  upon  his  knees  with 
the  exclamation,  "Rabbi,  thou  art  the  Son  of  God,  thou  art  the  King  of 
Israel ! " 

We  scarcely  hear  of  Nathanael  again.  His  seems  to  have  been  one 
of  those  calm,  retiring,  contemplative  souls,  whose  whole  sphere  of  ex- 
istence lies  not  here,  but — 

]  "  Where,  beyond  these  voices,  there  is  peace." 

It  was  a  life  of  which  the  world  sees  nothing,  because  it    was  "  hid  with 


CHRIST   CAIXTNG   THE    FISHERMEN. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLES.  1 29 

Christ  in  God;"  but  of  this  we  may  be  sure,  that  never  till  the  day  of 
his  martyrdom,  or  even  during  his  martyr  agonies,  did  he  forget  those 
quiet  words  which  showed  that  his  "  Lord  had  searched  him  out  and 
known  him,  and  comprehended  his  thoughts  long  before."  Not  once, 
doubtless,  but  on  many  and  many  a  future  day,"  was  the  promise  fulfilled 
for  him  and  for  his  companions,  that,  with  the  eye  of  faith,  they  should 
"see  the  heavens  opened,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descend- 
ing upon  the  Son  of  Man."^ 

1  The  promise  is  obviously  spiritual,  as  the  ablest  Fathers  saw.  A  striking  passage  of  Luther's  to  this 
effect  is  quoted  in  Alford.  The  word  '•  hereafter  shall  ye  see."  &c.  (John  i.  51),  meant  "/'"'""  this  time  forth" 
and  therefore  was  a  correct  translation  at  the  time  when  our  Version  was  made.  Compare  Matt.  xxvi.  64, 
and  the  petition  "  that  we  may  hereafter  live  a  godly,  righteous,  and  sober  life" — i.e.,  not  at  some  future 
time,  but  "  from  this  day  forward."  The  reading,  however,  is  very  dubious,  and  several  versions  omit  it. 
•'  Amen  ! "  or  "  Verily  ! "  is  found  twenty-five  times  in  St.  John,  and  always  doubled.  Cf.  Isa.  Ixv.  16  ;  2 
Cor.  i.  20 ;  Rev.  iii.  14.  For  the  Messianic  title  Son  of  Man— a  title  de&pribing  the  Messiah  as  the  essen- 
tial representative  of  every  child  in  the  great  human  family  of  God — see  Dan.  vii.  13,  14  ;  Rev.  i.  13,  &c. 

2  "  Son  of  Man,"  Ben-adam,  may,  in  its  general  sense,  be  applied  to  any  man  (Job  xxv.  6  ;  Ps.  cxiiv. 
3,  &c.).  but  it  is  applied  in  a  special  sense  to  Ezekiel  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  to  Christ  in  the  New.  One 
very  observable  fact  is,  that  though  used  of  Ezekiel  nearly  ninety  times,  he  does  not  once  apply  the  title 
to  himself  ;  and  though  used  about  eighty  times  of  Christ,  it  is  never  used  by  any  but  Himself,  except  in 
passages  which  describe  His  heavenly  exaltation  (Acts  vii.  56  ;  Rev.  i.  13 — 20  ;  xiv.  14).  It  seems  further 
clear  that  though  Ezekiel  is  called  Ben-Adam  (perhaps,  in  the  midst  of  his  revelations,  to  remind  him  of  his 
own  nothingness),  the  title  in  the  New  Testament,  being  clearly  drawn  from  Daniel  (vii.  13),  is  the  Chaldee 
Bar-en6sh,  which  represents  humanity  in  its  greatest  frailty  and  humility,  and  is  a  significant  declaration 
that  the  exaltation  of  Christ  in  His  kingly  and  judicial  office  is  due  to  His  previous  self-humiliation  in  His 
human  nature  (Phil.  ii.  % — 11). 


CHAPTER   XI, 


THE    FIRST    MIRACLE. 


^k^y^:^ 


"  The  modest  water  saw  its  God  and  blushed." — Crashaw. 


PA 


'>Q 


N  the  third  day,"  says  St.  John,  "there  was  a 
marriage  in  Cana  of  Galilee."  Writing  with  a 
full  knowledge  and  vivid  recollection  of  every  fact 
that  took  place  during  those  divinely-memorable 
days,  he  gives  his  indications  of  time  as  though 
all  were  equally  familiar  with  them.  The  third 
day  has  been  understood  in  different  man- 
ners :  it  is  simplest  to  understand  it  as  the 
third  after  the  departure  of  Jesus  for  Galilee. 
If  He  were  traveling  expeditiously  He  might 
stop  on  the  first  night  (supposing  him  to  follow 
the  ordinary  route)  at  Shiloh  or  at  Shechem ;  on 
the  second  at  En-Gannim  ;  on  the  third,  crossing 
the  plain  of  Jezreel,  He  could  easily  reach 
Nazareth,'  and  finding  that  His  mother  and  brethren  were  not  there, 
might,  in  an  hour  and  a  half  longer,  reach  Cana  in  time  for  the  cere- 
monies of  an  Oriental  wedding.' 

1  There  would  be  nothing  on  this  occasion  to  make  Jesus  linger,  and  possibly  He  was  journeying  with 
the  express  intention  of  being  present  at  the  marriage  feast.  The  fact  that  a  wedding  will  soon  take  place 
is  usually  known  throughout  an  Eastern  village,  and  Jesus  might  easily  have  heard  about  it  from  one  of 
His  disciples,  or  from  some  other  Galilean  pilgrim. 

2  It  will  be  seen  from  this  paragraph  that  I  consider  Kefr  Kenna,  and  not  the  so-called  Klina  el-Jalll, 
to  be  the  real  Cana.  On  this  point  I  entirely  agree  with  De  Saulcy  as  against  Dr.  Robinson.  If  I  am 
right  in  the  explanation  of  "  the  third  day,"  it  will  be  an  additional  argument  in  favor  of  this  view.  I  say 
•'  the  so-called  Kana  el-Jalil,"  because  certainly  the  more  ordinary  name  of  this  ruined  and  deserted  village 
is  Khurbct  Kana,  and  Thomson  (T/u  Land  and  tht  Book)  could  find  no  trace  worth  mentioning  of  the  other 
name,  which  rests  solely  on  Robinson's  authority;  moreover,  the  name  Kenna  el-Jalil  is  certainly  sometimes 
given  to  Kefr  Kenna,  as  Osborne  testifies.  The  philological  difficulty  is  by  no  means  insuperable  ;  tradition, 
too,  fairly  tested,  is  in  favor  of  Kefr  Kenna  ;  and  its  position  (far  nearer  to  Nazareth  and  Capernaum  than 
Khurbct  Kana,  and  lying  on  the  direct  road)  is  in  every  respect  more  in  accordance  with  the  indications  of 
the  Gospel  narrative  than  its  more  remote  and  desolate  rival.  Moreover,  at  Kefr  Kenna  there  are  distinct 
traces  of  antiquity,  and  at  the  other  place  there  are  none.  If  in  fact  it  be  a  mere  hallucination  to  suppose 
that  Khurbet  Kana  is  at  all  known  under  the  designation  of  Kana  el-Jalil.  more  than  half  of  the  reasons  for 
identifying  it  with  Cana  of  Galilee  at  once  fall  to  the  ground.  Now  on  this  point  Mr.  Thomson  is  far  more 
likely  to  be  right  than  Dr.  Robinson,  from  the  length  of  his  residence  in  Palestine,  and  his  great  familiarity 
with  Arabs  and  Arabic. 


THE  FIRST  MIRACLE.  15I 

It  is  well  known  that  those  ceremonies  began  at  twilight.      It  was  the 
custom  in  Palestine,  no  less  than  in  Greece, 

"  To  bear  away 
The  bride  from  home  at  blushing  shut  of  day," 

or  even  later,  far  into  the  night,  covered  from  head  to  foot  in  her 
loose  and  flowing  veil,  garlanded  with  flowers,  and  dressed  in  her  fairest 
robes.  She  was  heralded  by  torchlight,  with  songs  and  dances,  and  the 
music  of  the  drum  and  flute,  to  the  bridegroom's  home.  She  was  attended 
by  the  maidens  of  her  village,  and  the  bridegroom  came  to  meet  her 
with  his  youthful  friends.  Legend  says  that  Nathanael  was  on  this  occa- 
sion the  paranymph,  whose  duty  it  was  to  escort  the  bride ;  but  the 
presence  of  Mary,  who  must  have  left  Nazareth  on  purpose  to  be  present 
at  the  wedding,  seems  to  show  that  one  of  the  bridal  pair  was  some 
member  of  the  Holy  family.  Jesus  too  was  invited,  and  His  disciples, 
and  the  use  of  the  singular  implies  that  they  were  invited  for  His  sake, 
not  He  for  theirs.  It  is  not  likely,  therefore,  that  Nathanael,  who  had 
only  heard  the  name  of  Jesus  two  days  before,  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  marriage.  All  positive  conjecture  is  idle  ;  but  the  fact  that  the  Vir- 
gin evidently  took  a  leading  position  in  the  house,  and  commands  the 
servants  in  a  tone  of  authority,  renders  it  not  improbable  that  this  may 
have  been  the  wedding  of  one  of  her  nephews,  the  sons  of  Alphseus,  or 
even  one  of  her  daughters,  "the  sisters  of  Jesus,"'  to  whom  tradition 
gives  the  names  Esther  and  Thamar.  That  Joseph  himself  was  dead 
is  evident  from  the  complete  silence  of  the  Evangelists,  who,  after  Christ's 
first  visit  to  Jerusalem  as  a  boy,  make  no  further  mention  of  his  name." 
Whether  the  marriage  festival  lasted  for  seven  days,  as  was  usual 
among  these  who  could  afford  it,^  or  only  for  one  or  two,  as  was  the  case 
among  the  poorer  classes,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  at  some  period  of  the  en- 
tertainment the  wine  suddenly  ran  short.''  None  but  those  who  know 
how  sacred  in  the  East  is  the  duty  of  lavish  hospitality,  and  how  pas- 
sionately the  obligation  to  exercise  it  to  the  utmost  is  felt,  can  realize 
the  gloom  which  this  incident  would  have  thrown  over  the  occasion,  or 
the  misery  and  mortification  which    it  would    have  caused  to  the  wedded 

1  Matt.  xiii.  56. 

2  The  notion  that  the  bridegroom  was  Simon  the  Canaanite  arises  from  a  complete,  but  not  unnatural, 
error  about  his  name.  An  improbable  tradition  followed  by  St.  Jerome  and  St.  Bonaventura,  and  adopted 
by  the  Mohammedans,  represents  that  the  bridegroom  was  the  Evangelist  St.  John. 

3  Judg.  xiv.  12  ;  Tob.  xi.  19. 

4  John  ii.  3. 


132  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

pair.  They  would  have  felt  it  to  be,  as  in  the  East  it  would  still  be 
felt  to  be,  a  bitter  and  indelible  disgrace. 

Now  the  presence  of  Jesus  and  His  five  disciples  may  well  have 
been  the  cause  of  this  unexpected  deficiency.  The  invitation,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  originally  intended  for  Jesus  alone,  nor  could  the  youthful 
bridegroom  in  Cana  of  Galilee  have  been  in  the  least  aware  that  during 
the  last  four  days  Jesus  had  won  the  allegiance  of  five  disciples.  It  is 
probable  that  no  provision  had  been  made  for  this  increase  of  numbers, 
and  that  it  was  their  unexpected  presence  which  caused  the  deficiency  in 
this  simple  household.  Moreover,  it  is  hardly  probable  that,  coming  from 
a  hasty  journey  of  ninety  miles,  the  little  band  could,  even  had  their 
means  permitted  it,  have  conformed  to  the  common  Jewish  custom  of 
bringing  with  them  wine  and  other  provisions  to  contribute  to  the  mirth- 
fulness  of  the  wedding  feast. 

Under  these  circumstances,  therefore,  there  was  a  special  reason  why 
the  mother  of  Jesus  should  say  to  Him,  "They  have  no  wine."  The 
remark  was  evidently  a  pointed  one,  and  its  import  could  not  be  mis- 
understood. None  knew,  as  Mary  knew,  who  her  Son  was ;  yet  for 
thirty  long  years  of  patient  waiting  for  this  manifestation,  she  had  but 
seen  Him  grow  as  other  children  grow,  and  live,  in  sweetness  indeed 
and  humility  and  grace  of  sinless  wisdom,  like  a  tender  plant  before 
God,  but  in  all  other  respects  as  other  youths  have  lived,  pre-eminent 
only  in  utter  stainlessness.  But  now  He  was  thirty  years  old ;  the  voice 
of  the  Great  Prophet,  with  whose  fame  the  nation  rang,  had  proclaimed 
Him  to  be  the  promised  Christ ;  He  was  being  publicly  attended  by  dis- 
ciples who  acknowledged  Him  as  Rabbi  and  Lord.  Here  was  a  difficulty 
to  be  met ;  an  act  of  true  kindness  to  be  performed  ;  a  disgrace  to  be 
averted  from  friends  whom  He  loved — and  that  too  a  disgrace  to  which 
His  own  presence  and  that  of  His  disciples  had  unwittingly  contributed. 
Was  not  His  hour  yet  come?  Who  could  tell  what  He  might  do,  if  He 
were  only  made  aware  of  the  trouble  which  threatened  to  interrupt  the 
feast  ?  Might  not  some  band  of  hymning  angels,  like  the  radiant  visions 
who  had  heralded  His  birth,  receive  His  bidding  to  change  that  humble 
marriage-feast  into  a  scene  of  heaven  ?  Might  it  not  be  that  even  now 
He  would  lead  them  into  His  banquet-house,  and  His  banner  over  them 
be  love  ? 

Her  faith  was  strong,  her  motives  pure,  except  perhaps  what  has 
been  called  "  the  slightest  possible  touch  of  the  purest  womanly,  motherly 


THE  FIRST  MIRACLE.  133 

anxiety  (we  know  no  other  word)  prompting  in  her  the  desire  to  see  her 
Son  honored  in  her  presence."  And  her  Son's  hour  had  nearly  come  : 
but  it  was  necessary  now,  at  once,  for  ever,  for  that  Son  to  show  to  her 
that  henceforth  He  was  not  Jesus  the  Son  of  Mary,  but  the  Christ  the 
Son  of  God  ;  that  as  regarded  His  great  work  and  mission,  as  regarded 
His  Eternal  Being,  the  significance  of  the  beautiful  relationship  had 
passed  away  ;  that  His  thoughts  were  not  as  her  thoughts,  neither  His 
ways  her  ways,'  It  could  not  have  been  done  in  a  manner  more  decisive, 
yet  at  the  same  time  more  entirely  tender. 

"  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  The  words  at  first  sound 
harsh,  and  almost  repellent  in  their  roughness  and  brevity ;  but  that  is 
the  fault  partly  of  our  version,  partly  of  our  associations.  He  does  not 
call  her  "mother,"  because,  in  circumstances  such  as  these,  she  was  His 
mother  no  longer;  but  the  address  "Woman"  {Tvvai)  was  so  respectful 
that  it  might  be,  and  was,  addressed  to  the  queenliest;^  and  so  gentle 
that  it  might  be,  and  was,  addressed  at  the  tenderest  moments  to  the 
most  fondly  loved.^  And  "what  have  I  to  do  with  thee?"  is  a  literal 
version  of  a  common  Aramaic  phrase  {mah  It  veldk),  which,  while  it  sets 
^  aside  a  suggestion  and  waives  all  further  discussion  of  it,  is  yet  per- 
fectly consistent  with  the  most  delicate  courtesy,  and  the  most  feeling 
consideration.'' 

Nor  can  we  doubt  that  even  the  slight  check  involved  in  these  quiet 
words  was  still  more  softened  by  the  look  and  accent  with  which  they 
were  spoken,  and  which  are  often  sufficient  to  prevent  far  harsher  utter- 
ances from  inflicting  any  pain.  For  with  undiminished  faith,  and  with 
no  trace  of    pained  feeling,   Mary  said    to    the  servants — over  whom  it  is 

1  Similarly  in  Luke  ii.  49,  the  authority  of  Joseph  is  wholly  subordinated  to  a  truer  and  loftier  one 
(see  p.  59).  The  same  truth  is  distinctly  shadowed  forth  in  Matt.  xii.  48 — 50  ;  Luke  -xi.  27,  28.  St.  Bernard, 
in  illustration  of  this  desire  of  our  Lord  to  indicate  that  the  spiritual  life  must  not  be  disturbed  by  earthly 
relationships,  tells  a  striking  story  of  a  hermit  who,  on  being  consulted  by  his  brother,  referred  him  to 
the  advice  of  another  brother  who  had  died  some  time  before.  "  But  he  is  dead,"  said  the  other  with  sur- 
prise. "  So  am  I  also,"  replied  the  hermit.  It  may  have  been  their  inability  to  appreciate  this  very  fact 
that  produced  a  sort  of  alienation  between  Christ  and  His  earthly  brethren  as  regards  the  entire  plan  of 
His  Messianic  manifestation,  and  made  Him  imply  that  even  "in  His  own  house"  a  prophet  is  without 
honor  (Matt.  xiii.  57). 

2  As  by  the  Emperor  Augustus  to  Cleopatra  ;  by  the  chorus  to  Queen  Clytemnestra,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  to  princesses  in  Greek  tragedy. 

3  As,  for  instance,  by  Jesus  to  Mary  Magdalene,  in  the  garden,  "  Woman,  why  weepest  thou?  whom 
seekest  thou?"  (John  xx.  15) ;  by  the  angels  (id.  13);  and  by  Jesus  on  the  cross  to  His  mother,  "Woman,  be- 
hold thy  son  "  (John  xix.  26). 

4  See  for  other  instances  of  the  phrase,  2  Sam.  xvi.  10;  xix.  22  ;  i  Kings  xvii.  18  ;  Judg.  xi.  12 ;  S 
Kings  iii.  13  ;  Josh.  xxii.  24. 


134  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

clear  she  was  exercising  some  authority — "Whatever  He  says  to  you,  do 
it  at  once."' 

The  first  necessity  after  a  journey  in  the  East  is  to  wash  the  feet, 
and  before  a  meal  to  wash  the  hands  ;  and  to  supply  these  wants  there 
were  standing  (as  still  is  usual),  near  the  entrance  of  the  house,  six  large 
stone  water-jars,  with  their  orifices  filled  with  bunches  of  fresh  green 
leaves  to  keep  the  water  cool.  Each  of  these  jars  contained  two  or  three 
baths  of  water,  and  Jesus  bade  the  servants  at  once  fill  them  to  the  brim. 
They  did  so,  and  He  then  ordered  them  to  draw  out  the  contents  in 
smaller  vessels,'  and  carry  it  to  the  guest  who,  according  to  the  festive 
custom  of  the  time,  had  been  elected  "governor  of  the  feast."'  Know- 
ing nothing  of  what  had  taken  place,  he  mirthfully  observed  that  in 
offering  the  good  wine  last,  the  bridegroom  had  violated  the  common 
practice  of  banquets.  This  was  Christ's  first  miracle,  and  thus,  with  a 
definite  and  symbolic  purpose,  did  He  manifest  His  glory,  and  His  dis- 
ciples believed  on   Him. 

It  was  his  first  miracle,  yet  how  unlike  all  that  we  should  have  ex- 
pected; how  simply  unobtrusive,  how  divinely  calm  !  The  method,  indeed, 
of  the  miracle — which  is  far  more  wonderful  in  character  than  the  ordinary 
miracles  of  healing — transcends  our  powers  of  conception  ;  yet  it  was  not 
done  with  any  pomp  of  circumstance,  or  blaze  of  adventitious  glorifica- 
tion. Men  in  these  days  have  presumptuously  talked  as  though  it  were 
God's  duty — the  duty  of  Him  to  whom  the  sea  and  the  mountains  are 
a  very  little  thing,  and  before  whose  eyes  the  starry  heaven  is  but  as 
one  white  gleam  in  the  "intense  inane" — to  perform  His  miracles  before 
a  circle  of  competent  savans  f  Conceivably  it  might  be  so  had  it  been 
intended  that  miracles  should  be  the  sole,  or  even  the  main,  credentials 
of  Christ's  authority  ;  but  to  the  belief  of  Christendom  the  Son  of  God 
would  still  be  the  Son  of  God  even  if,  like  John,  He  had  done  no  miracle. 
The  miracles  of  Christ  were  miracles  addressed,   not  to  a  cold  and  skeptic 

1  John  ii.  5.  For  the  expression,  "  Mine  hour  is  not  yet  come,"  see  the  instances  in  which,  with  a 
very  similar  desire  to  check  the  unwarranted  suggestions  of  His  earthly  relatives,  He  uses  it  to  His  breth- 
ren who  wished  to  hurry  His  visit  to  Jerusalem.  Mr.  Sanday  compares  the  passage  with  Matt.  xv.  21-28. 
"There  too  a  petition  is  first  refused,  and  then  granted  ;  and  there  too  the  petitioner  seems  to  divine  that 
it  will  be." 

2  Cf.  John  iv.  7.  Prof.  Westcott  thinks  that  the  exact  words  exclude  the  all  but  universal  notion,  l/utt 
all  I  he  water  in  the  six  jars  was  turned  into  wine. 

3  The  custom  may  have  been  originally  boriowed  from  the  Greeks,  but  it  had  long  been  familiar  to 
the  Jews,  and  the  master  of  the  feast  here  acts  exactly  as  he  is  advised  to  do  by  the  son  of  Sirach  ;  "  When 
thou  hast  done  all  thy  office,  take  thy  place,  that  thou  mayest  be  merry  with  them,  and  receive  a  crown  for 
thy  well-ordering  of  the  feast"  (Ecclus.  xxxii.  I,  2). 


THE  FIRST  MIRACLE.  135 

curiosity,  but  to  a  loving  and  humble  faith.  They  needed  not  the  acute- 
ness  of  the  impostor,  or  the  self-assertion  of  the  thaumaturge.  They 
were  indeed  the  signs — almost,  we  had  said,  the  accidental  signs — of  His 
divine  mission  ;  but  their  primary  object  was  the  alleviation  of  human 
suffering,  or  the  illustration  of  sacred  truths,  or,  as  in  this  instance,  the 
increase  of  innocent  joy.  An  obscure  village,  an  ordinary  wedding,  a 
humble  home,  a  few  faithful  peasant  guests — such  a  scene,  and  no  splen- 
did amphitheater  or  stately  audience,  beheld  one  of  Christ's  greatest 
miracles  of  power.  And  in  these  respects  the  circumstances  of  the  First 
Miracle  are  exactly  analogous  to  the  supernatural  events  recorded  of 
Christ's  birth.  In  the  total  unlikeness  of  this  to  all  that  we  should  have 
imagined — in  its  absolute  contrast  with  anything  which  legend  would 
have  invented — in  all,  irf  short,  which  most  offends  the  unbeliever,  we 
see  but  fresh  confirmation  that  we  are  reading  the  words  of  soberness 
and  truth. 

A  miracle  is  a  miracle,  and  we  see  no  possible  advantage  in  trying 
to  understand  the  means  by  which  it  was  wrought.  In  accepting  the 
evidence  for  it — and  it  is  for  each  man  to  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own 
mind,  and  to  accept  or  to  reject  at  his  pleasure,  perhaps  even  it  may 
prove  to  be  at  his  peril — we  are  avowedly  accepting  the  evidence  for  some- 
thing which  transcends,  though  it  by  no  means  necessarily  supersedes, 
the  ordinary  laws  by  which  Nature  works.  What  is  gained — in  what 
single  respect  does  the  miracle  become,  so  to  speak,  easier  or  more  com- 
prehensible—by supposing,  with  Olshausen,  that  we  have  here  only  an 
accelerated  process  of  nature;  or  with  Neander,  that  the  powers  of 
Avater  were  intensified  into  those  of  wine  ;  or  with  Lange  (apparently), 
that  the  guests  were  in  a  state  of  supernatural  exaltation .?  Let  those 
who  find  it  intellectually  possible,  or  spiritually  advantageous,  freely  avail 
themselves  of  such  hypotheses  if  they  see  their  way  to  do  so ;  to  us 
they  seem,  not  "irreverent,"  not  "rationalistic,"  not  "dangerous,"  but 
simply  embarrassing  and  needless.  To  denounce  them  as  unfaithful 
concessions  to  the  spirit  of  skepticism  may  suit  the  exigencies  of  a  vio- 
lent and  Pharisaic  theology,  but  is  unworthy  of  that  calm  charity  which 
should  be  the  fairest  fruit  of  Christian  faith.  In  matters  of  faith  it 
ought  to  be  to  every  one  of  us  "  a  very  small  thing  to  be  judged  of 
you  or  of  man's  judgment  ;"  we  ought  to  believe,  or  disbelieve,  or  modify 
belief,  with  sole  reference  to  that  which,  in  our  hearts  and  consciences, 
we  feel  to  be  the  Will  of  God  ;    and  it  is  by   His  judgment,  and  by   His 


l^e  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

alone,  that  we  should  care  to  stand  or  to  fall.  We  as  little  claim  a 
right  to  scathe  the  rejecter  of  miracles  by  abuse  and  anathema,  as  we 
admit  /lis  right  to  sneer  at  us  for  imbecility  or  hypocrisy.  Jesus  has 
tau^'^ht  to  all  men,  whether  they  accept  or  reject  Him,  the  lessons  of 
charity  and  sweetness  ;  and  what  the  believer  and  the  unbeliever  alike  can 
do,  is  calmly,  temperately,  justly,  and  with  perfect  and  solemn  sincerity 
— knowing  how  deep  are  the  feelings  involved,  and  how  vast  the  issues 
at  stake  between  us — to  state  the  reasons  for  the  belief  that  is  in  him. 
And  this  being  so,  I  would  say  that  if  we  once  understand  that  the  word 
Nature  has  little  or  no  meaning  unless  it  be  made  to  include  the  idea 
of  its  Author ;  if  we  once  realize  the  fact,  which  all  science  teaches  us, 
that  the  very  simplest  and  most  elementary  operation  of  the  laws  of 
Nature  is  infinitely  beyond  the  comprehension  of  our  most  exalted  in- 
tellif^encc  ;  if  we  once  believe  that  the  Divine  Providence  of  God  is  no 
far-off  abstraction,  but  a  living  and  loving  care  over  the  lives  of  men ; 
lastly,  if  we  once  believe  that  Christ  was  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God, 
the  Word  of  God  who  came  to  reveal  and  declare  His  Father  to  man- 
kind, then  there  is  nothing  in  any  Gospel  miracle  to  shock  our  faith : 
we  shall  regard  the  miracles  of  Christ  as  resulting  from  the  fact  of  His 
Being  and  His  mission,  no  less  naturally  and  inevitably  than  the  rays  of 
light  stream  outwards  from  the  sun.  They  were,  to  use  the  favorite 
expression  of  St.  John,  not  merely  "  portents,"  or  powers,  or  signs,  but 
they  were  works,  the  ordinary  and  inevitable  works  (whenever  He  chose 
to  exercise  them)  of  One  whose  very  Existence  was  the  highest  miracle 
of  all.  For  our  faith  is  that  He  was  sinless  ;  and  to  borrow  the  words 
of  a  German  poet,  "  one  might  have  thought  that  the  miracle  of  mira- 
cles was  to  have  created  the  world  such  as  it  is  ;  yet  it  is  a  far  greater 
miracle  to  have  lived  a  perfectly  pure  life  therein."  The  greatest  of 
modern  philosophers  said  that  there  were  two  things  which  overwhelmed 
his  soul  with  awe  and  astonishment,  "  the  starry  heaven  above,  and  the 
moral  law  Avithin  ;  "  but  to  these  has  been  added  a  third  reality  no  less 
majestic — the  fulfillment  of  the  moral  law  without  us  in  the  Person  of 
Jesus  Christ.  That  fulfillment  makes  us  believe  that  He  was  indeed 
Divine;  and  if  He  were  Divine,  we  have  no  further  astonishment  left 
when  we  are  taught  that  He  did  on  earth  that  which  can  be  done  by 
the  Power  of  God  alone. 

But    there    are    two    characteristics    of    this    first     miracle    which    we 
oueht  to   notice. 


THE  FIRST  MIRACLE.  137 

One  is  its  divine  unselfishness.  His  ministry  is  to  be  a  ministry  of 
joy  and  peace;  His  sanction  is  to  be  given  not  to  a  crushing  asceticism, 
but  to  a  genial  innocence;  His  approval,  not  to  a  compulsory  celibacy, 
but  to  a  sacred  union.  He  who,  to  appease  His  own' sore  hunger,  would 
not  turn  the  stones  of  the  wilderness  into  bread,  gladly  exercises,  for  the 
sake  of  others.  His  transforming  power ;  and  but  six  or  seven  day? 
afterwards,  relieves  the  perplexity  and  sorrow  of  a  humble  wedding 
feast  by  turning  water  into  wine.  The  first  miracle  of  Moses  was,  in 
stern  retribution,  to  turn  the  river  of  a  guilty  nation  into  blood  ;  the  first 
of  Jesus  to  fill  the  water-jars  of  an  innocent  family  with  wine. 

And  the  other  is  His  symbolic  character.  Like  nearly  all  the  miracles 
of  Christ,  it  combines  the  characteristics  of  a  work  of  mercy,  an  emblem, 
and  a  prophecy.  The  world  gives  its  best  first,  and  afterwards  all  the 
dregs  and  bitterness  ;  but  Christ  came  to  turn  the  lower  into  the  richer 
and  sweeter,  the  Mosaic  law  into  the  perfect  law  of  liberty,  the  baptism 
of  John  into  the  baptism  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire,  the  self- 
denials  of  a  painful  isolation  into  the  self-denials  of  a  happy  home,  sor- 
row and  sighing  into  hope  and  blessing,  and  water  into  wine.  And 
thus  the  "  holy  estate "  which  Christ  adorned  and  beautified  with 
His  presence  and  first  miracle  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  foreshadows 
the  mystical  union  between  Christ  and  His  Church;  and  the  common 
element  which  He  thus  miraculously  changed  becomes  a  type  of 
our  life  on  earth  transfigured  and  ennobled  by  the  anticipated  joys  of 
heaven — a  type  of  that  wine  which  He  shall  drink  new  with  us  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  at  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb.' 

1  A  large  school  of  English  Apologists  have  appealed  to  the  miracles  of  Christ  as  proving  His  mission, 
and  to  the  Gospels  as  proving  the  miracles.  This  is  not  the  view  of  the  writer,  who,  in  common  he  believes 
with  many  of  the  more  recent  authorities  who  have  dealt  with  the  subject,  regards  "  Christianity  and 
Christendom  "  as  the  strongest  eternal  proof  of  the  historical  reality  of  that  which  the  Gospels  relate. 
The  Gospels  supply  us  with  a  vera  causa  for  that  which  otherwise  would  be  to  us  an  inexplicable  enigma. 
This  was  the  argument  which  I  endeavored  to  state  as  forcibly  as  I  could  in  the  Hulsean  Lectures  of 
1870 — "  The  Witness  of  History  to  Christ."  But  I  say  "  The  strongest  external  ^tooi,"  because  those  who 
are  so  ready  to  assume  that  any  one  who  believes,  for  instance,  in  the  Incarnation  must  necessarily  be 
either  morally  a  hypocrite,  or  intellectually  an  imbecile,  ought  not  to  forget  how  stiong  is  that  freparation 
for  (5c/iV/ which  every  Christian  derives  from  the  experiences  of  his  own  life,  and  fromlhat  which  he  believes 
to  be  the  Voice  of  God  speaking  to  his  heart,  and  confirming  all  which  he  has  learnt  of  God  through  Christ, 
and  Christ  alone.  The  force  of  this  evidence  is  indeed  valueless  as  an  argument  against  others  ;  on  the 
other  hand,  they  should  bear  in  mind  that  their  denial  of  its  force  in  their  own  case  does  not  invalidate  its 
force  in  the  minds  of  those  for  whom  it  exists. 


CHAPTER    XII. 


T  H  K     SCENE     OK     THE     MINISTRY 


•r-SOS, 


"  Give  true  hearts  but  earth  and  sky. 
And  some  flowers  to  bloom  and  die  ; 
Homely  scenes  and  simple  views 
Lowly  thoughts  may  best  infuse." — Kemble. 


HRIST'S  first  miracle  of  Cana  was  a  sign  that 
He  came,  not  to  call  His  disciples  otd  of  the 
world  and  its  ordinary  duties,  but  to  make 
men  happier,  nobler,  better  in  the  world.  He 
willed  that  they  should  be  husbands,  and 
fathers,  and  citizens,  not  eremites  or  monks. 
He  would  show  that  He  approved  the  bright- 
ness of  pure  society,  and  the  mirth  of  innocent 
gatherings,  no  less  than  the  ecstasies  of  the 
ascetic  in  the  wilderness,  or  the  visions  of  the 
mystic  in  his  solitary  cell. 

And,  as  pointing  the  same  moral,  there  was  some- 
thing significant  in  the  place  which  He  chose  as  the  scene 
of  His  earliest  ministry.  St.  John  had  preached  in  the 
lonely  wastes  by  the  Dead  Sea  waters ;  his  voice  had  been 
echoed  back  by  the  flinty  precipices  that  frown  over  the  sultry  Ghdr. 
The  city  nearest  to  the  scene  of  his  teaching  had  been  built  in  defiance 
of  a  curse,  and  the  road  to  it  led  through  "the  bloody  way."  All 
around  him  breathed  the  dreadful  associations  of  a  guilty  and  desolated 
past ;  the  very  waves  were  bituminous ;  the  very  fruits  crumbled  into 
foul  ashes  under  the  touch  ;  the  very  dust  beneath  his  feet  lay,  hot  and 
white,  over  the  relics  of  an  abominable  race.  There,  beside  those 
leaden  waters,  under  that  copper  heaven,  amid  those  burning  wildernesses 
and  scarred  ravines,  had  he  preached  the  baptism  of  repentance.  But 
Christ,  amid  the  joyous  band  of  His  mother,  and  His  brethren,  and 
His  disciples,   chose  as    the  earliest  center  of    His  ministry  a    bright  and 

busy   city,  whose  marble  buildings  were  mirrored  in  a  limpid  sea. 

■18 


THE  SCENE  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  139 

That  little  city  was  Capernaum.  It  rose  under  the  gentle  declivities 
of  hills  that  encircled  an  earthly  Paradise.'  There  were  no  such  trees, 
and  no  such  gardens,  anywhere  in  Palestine  as  in  the  land  of  Gennesa- 
reth.  The  very  name  means  "garden  of  abundance,"  and  the  numberless 
flowers  blossom  over  a  little  plain  which  is  "  in  sight  like  unto  an  emer- 
ald." It  was  doubtless  a  part  of  Christ's  divine  plan  that  His  ministry 
should  begin  amid  scenes  so  beautiful,  and  that  the  good  tidings,  which 
revealed  to  mankind  their  loftiest  hopes  and  purest  pleasures,  should  be 
first  proclaimed  in' a  region  of  unusual  loveliness.  The  features  of  the 
scene  are  neither  gorgeous  nor  colossal ;  there  is  nothing  here  of  the 
mountain  gloom  or  the  mountain  glory;  nothing  of  that  "dread  mag- 
nificence "  which  overawes  us  as  we  gaze  on  tropical  volcanoes  or  the 
ice-clad  hills.  Had  our  life  on  earth  been  full  of  wild  and  terrible  catas- 
trophes, then  it  might  have  been  fitly  symbolized  by  scenes  which  told 
only  of  deluge  and  conflagration ;  but  these  green  pastures  and  still 
waters,  these  bright  birds  and  blossoming  shrubs,  the  dimpling  surface  of 
that  inland  sea,  so  doubly  delicious  and  refreshful  in  a  sultry  land,  all 
correspond  with  the  characteristics  of  a  life  composed  of  innocent  and 
simple  elements,  and  brightened  with  the  ordinary  pleasures  which,  like 
the  rain  and  the  sunshine,  are  granted  to  all  mankind. 

What  the  traveler  will  see,  as  he  emerges  from  the  Valley  of  Doves, 
and  catches  his  first  eager  glimpse  of  Gennesareth,  will  be  a  small  inland 
sea,  like  a  harp  in  shape,"  thirteen  miles  long  and  six  broad.  On  the 
farther  or  eastern  side  runs  a  green  strip  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in 
breadth, 3  beyond  which  rises,  to  the  height  of  some  900  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  lake,  an  escarpment  of  desolate  hills,  scored  with  gray 
ravines,  without  tree,  or  village,  or  vestige  of  cultivation — the  frequent 
scene  of  our  Lord's  retirement  when,  after  His  weary  labors.  He  sought 
the  deep  refreshment  of  solitude  with  God.  The  lake — with  its  glitter- 
ing crystal,  and  fringe  of  flowering  oleanders,  through  whose  green  leaves 
the  king-fishers  may  be  seen  in  multitudes  dashing  down  at  the  fish  that 
glance  beneath  them — lies  at  the  bottom  of  a  great  dent  or  basin 
in    the    earth's    surface,    more    than     500    feet    below    the    level    of     the 

1  John  ii.  12,  "  He  descended" — a  touch  of  accuracy,  since  the  road  is  one  long  descent. 

2  This  is  said  to  be  the  origin  of  the  ancient  name  "  Chinnereth,"  a  beautiful  onomatopoeia  for  a  harp. 
The  Wady  Hammam,  or  "  Valley  of  Doves,"  is  a  beautiful  gorge  in  the  hills  by  which  the  traveler  may 
descend  from  Hattin  to  Mejdel. 

3  Except  at  one  spot,  the  probable  scene  of  the  cure  of  the  Gadarene  demoniacs,  where  the  hills  ru« 
close  up  to  the  water. 


I40  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Mediterranean.'  Hence  the  burning  and  enervating  heat  of  the  valley; 
but  hence,  too,  the  variety  of  its  foliage,  the  fertility  of  its  soil,  the  luxuri' 
ance  of  its  flora,  the  abundant  harvests  that  ripen  a  month  earlier  than 
they  do  elsewhere,  and  the  number  of  rivulets  that  tumble  down  the 
hill-sides  into  the  lake.  The  shores  are  now  deserted.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  small  and  decaying  town  of  Tiberias — crumbling  into  the  Ust 
stage  of  decrepitude — and  the  "  frightful  village  "  of  Mejdel  (the  ancient 
Magdala),  where  the  degradation  of  the  inhabitants  is  b^ist  shown  by  the 
fact  that  the  children  play  stark  naked  in  the  street — there  is  not  a 
single  inhabited  spot  on  its  once  crowded  shores.''  One  miserable,  crazy 
boat — and  that  not  always  procurable — has  replaced  its  gay  and  numerous 
fleet.  As  the  fish  are  still  abundant,  no  fact  could  show  more  clearly 
the  dejected  inanity  and  apathetic  enervation  of  the  present  dwellers 
upon  its  shores.  But  the  natural  features  still  remain.  The  lake  still 
lies  unchanged  in  the  bosom  of  the  hills,  reflecting  every  varying  gleam 
of  the  atmosphere  like  an  opal  set  in  emeralds ;  the  waters  are  still  as 
beautiful  in  their  clearness  as  when  the  boat  of  Peter  lay  rocking  on 
their  ripples,  and  Jesus  gazed  into  their  crystal  depths  ;  the  cup-like  basin 
still  seems  to  overflow  with  its  flood  of  sunlight ;  the  air  is  still  balmy 
with  natural  perfumes;  the  turtle-dove  still  murmurs  in  the  valleys,  and 
the  pelican  fishes  in  the  waves  ;  and  there  are  palms  and  green  fields, 
and  streams,  and  gray  heaps  of  ruin.  And  what  it  has  lost  in  popula- 
tion and  activity,  it  has  gained  in  solemnity  and  interest.  If  every 
vestige  of  human  habitation  should  disappear  from  beside  it,  and  the 
jackal  and  the  hyena  should  howl  about  the  shattered  fragments  of  the 
synagogues  where  once  Christ  taught,  yet  the  fact  that  he  chose  it  as 
the  scene  of  His  opening  ministry ^  will  give  a  sense  of  sacredness  and 
pathos  to  its  lonely  waters  till  time  shall  be  no  more. 

Yet  widely  diff^erent  must  have  been  its  general  aspect  in  the  time 
of  Christ,  and  far  more  strikingly  beautiful,  because  far  more  richly  cul- 
tivated. Josephus,  in  a  passage  of  glowing  admiration,  after  describing 
the  sweetness  of  its  waters,  and  the    delicate    temperature  of    its    air,  its 

1  Hence  the  plain  of  Gennesareth  is  called  by  the  Arabs  El-Ghuweir,  "the  little  hollow,"  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  El-Ghor,  "  the  great  hollow,"  i.e.,  the  Jordan  valley. 

2  A  few  Bedawin  may  sometimes  be  found  at  Ain  et-Tabijah  (Bethsaida).  Renan  truly  observes  that 
a  furnace  such  as  El-Ghuweir  no-v  is,  could  hardly  have  been  the  scene  of  such  prodigious  activity,  had  not 
the  climate  been  modified  by  the  numberless  trees,  which  under  the  withering  influence  of  Islam  have  all 
been  destroyed. 

3  Acts  X.  37:  St.  Peter  says,  "That  word  which  was  preached  throuRhout  all  Judea,  and  began  /♦•••ai 
Galilee."     Luke  xxiii.  5  :  "  Beginning  from  Galilee." 


THE  SCENE  OF  THE   MINISTRY.  141 

palms,  and  vines,  and  oranges,  and  figs,  and  almonds,  and  pomegranates, 
and  warm  springs,  says  that  the  seasons  seemed  to  compete  for  the 
honor  of  its  possession,  and  Nature  to  have  created  it  as  a  kind  of  emu- 
lative challenge,  wherein  she  had  gathered  all  the  elements  of  her 
strength.'  The  Talmudists  see  in  the  fact  that  this  plain—"  the  ambi- 
tion of  Nature  "—belonged  to  the  tribe  of  Naphtali,  a  fulfillment  of  the 
Mosaic  blessing,  that  that  tribe  should  be  "satisfied  with  favor,  and  full 
with  the  blessing  of  the  Lord;""  and  they  had  the  proverb,  true  in  a 
deeper  sense  than  they  suppose,  that  "God  had  created  seven  seas 
in  the  land  of  Canaan,  but  one  only— the  Sea  of  Galilee— had  He  chosen 
for  Himself." 

Not,  however,  for  its  beauty  only,  but  because  of  its  centraHty,  and 
its  populous    activity,  it  was    admirably  adapted  for    that    ministry  which 
fulfilled  the  old  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  that  "  the  land  of    Zebulun    and   the 
land  of  Naphtali,   beyond    Jordan,  Galilee  of    the  Gentiles,"  should  "see 
a  great  light ; "  and  that  to  them  "  who  sat  in  the  region  and  shadow  of 
death"  should  "light  spring  up."     For    Christ    was    to    be,  even    in    His 
own  lifetime,   "a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,"  as  well  as  "the  glory  of 
His  people  Israel."     And    people  of    many  nationalties  dwelt    in  and  en- 
compassed   this    neighborhood,    because    it   was    "the    way    of    the    sea." 
"The  cities,"  says  Josephus,   "lie  here  very  thick  ;  and  the  very  numerous 
villages  are  so  full  of  people,  because  of  the  fertility  of  the  land, 
that  the  very  smallest  of  them    contain    above    15,000    inhabitants."     He 
adds  that  the  people  were  active,  industrious,  and  inured  to  war  from  in- 
fancy,  cultivating  every  acre  of  their  rich  and  beautiful  soil.      No  less  than 
four  roads  communicated  with  the  shores  of  the  lake.      One  led  down  the  Jor- 
dan valley  on  the  western  side  ;  another,  crossing  a  bridge    at    the  south 
of  the  lake,  passed  through   Peraea  to  the  fords  of   Jordan  near  Jericho  ; 
a  third  led,  through  Sepphoris,  the  gay  and  rising  capital  of    Galilee,  to 
the  famous  port  of  Accho  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea  ;  a  fourth  ran  over 
the  mountains  of  Zebulon  to   Nazareth,  and  so  through  the  plain  of   Es- 
draelon  to  Samaria  and  Jerusalem.     Through  this  district  passed  the  great 
caravans  on  their  way  from  Egypt  to  Damascus ;  and  the    heathens  who 
congregated  at  Bethsaida  Julias  and  Caesarea  Philippi  must  have  been  con- 
stantly seen  in  the  streets  of  Capernaum.      In  the  time  of  Christ  it  was, 
for  population  and  activity,   "the  manufacturing  district"  of  Palestine,  and 

1  The  Rabbis  refer  to  its  extraordinary  fruitfulness. 

2  Deut.  xxxlii.  23. 


142  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  waters  of  its  lake  were  ploughed  by  4,000  vessels  of  every  descrip- 
tion, from  the  war-vessel  of  the  Romans  to  the  rough  fisher-boats  of 
Bethsaida,  and  the  gilded  pinnaces  from  Herod's  palace.  Iturea,  Samaria, 
Syria,  Phenicia  were  immediately  accessible  by  crossing  the  lake,  the 
river,  or  the  hills.  The  town  of  Tiberias,  which  Herod  Antipas  had  built 
to  be  the  capital  of  Galilee,  and  named  in  honor  of  the  reigning  emperor, 
had  rised  with  marvelous  rapidity  ;  by  the  time  that  St.  John  wrote  his 
Gospel  it  had  already  given  its  name  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee  ;  and  even 
if  Christ  never  entered  its  heathenish  amphitheater  or  grave-polluted 
streets,'  He  must  have  often  seen  in  the  distance  its  turreted  walls,  its 
strong  castle,  and  the  Golden  House  of  Antipas,  flinging  far  into  the  lake 
the  reflection  of  its  marble  lions  and  sculptured  architraves.  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa  had  contributed  to  its  population,  and  men  of  all  nations 
met  in  its  market-place.  All  along  the  western  shores  of  Gennesareth, 
Jews  and  Gentiles  were  strangely  mingled,  and  the  wild  Arabs  of  the 
desert  might  there  be  seen  side  by  side  with  enterprising  Phenicians, 
effeminate  Syrians,  contemptuous  Romans,  and  supple,  wily,  corrupted 
Greeks. 

The  days  of  delightful  seclusion  in  the  happy  valley  of  Nazareth 
were  past ;  a  life  of  incessant  toil,  of  deep  anxiety,  of  trouble,  and 
wandering,  and  opposition,  of  preaching,  healing,  and  doing  good,  was 
now  to  begin.  At  this  earliest  dawn  of  His  public  entrance  upon  His 
ministry,  our  Lord's  first  stay  in  Capernaum  was  not  for  many  days; 
yet  these  days  would  be  a  type  of  all  the  remaining  life.  He  would 
preach  in  a  Jewish  synagogue  built  by  a  Roman  centurion,  and  His 
works  of  love  would  become  known  to  men  of  many  nationalities."  It 
would  be  clear  to  all  that  the  new  Prophet  who  had  arisen  was  wholly 
unlike  His  great  forerunner.  The  hairy  mantle,  the  ascetic  seclusion, 
the  unshorn  locks,  would  have  been  impossible  and  out  of  place  among 
the  inhabitants  of  those  crowded  and  busy  shores.  Christ  came  not  to 
revolutionize,  but  to  ennoble  and  to  sanctify.  He  came  to  reveal  that 
the  Eternal  was  not  the  Future,  but  only  the   Unseen;  that  Eternity  was 

1  being  built  on  the  site  of  an  old  cemetery,  no  true  Jew  could  enter  it  without  ceremonial  pollution. 
Josephus  expressly  says  that,  from  the  number  of  tombs  which  had  to  be  removed  in  laying  the  founda- 
tions, every  Jew  who  inhabited  it  became  unclean  (Numb.  xix.  Il)  ;  and  hence  Herod  Antipas,  who  built 
it,  had  to  compel  people  to  reside  in  it,  or  to  bribe  them  by  very  substantial  privileges.  It  is  probable  that 
Christ  never  set  foot  within  its  precincts  ;  yet  some  of  the  inhabitants  were,  of  course,  among  His  bearers 
(John  vi.  23). 

2  That  some  great  works  were  performed  during  this  brief  visit  seems  clear  from  Luke  iv.  23 ; 
but  that  they  could  scarcely  be  regarded  as  miracles  seems  equally  clear  from  John  iv.  54. 


THE  SCENE  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  143 

no  ocean  whither  men  were  being  swept  by  the  river  of  Time,  but  was 
around  them  now,  and  that  their  lives  were  only  real  in  so  far  as  they 
felt  its  presence.  He  came  to  teach  that  God  was  no  dim  abstraction, 
infinitely  separated  from  them  in  the  far-off  heaven,  but  that  He  was 
the  Father  in  whom  they  lived,  and  moved,  and  had  their  being;  and 
that  the  service  which  He  loved  was  not  ritual  and  sacrifice,  not 
pompous  scrupulosity  and  censorious  orthodoxy,  but  mercy  and  justice, 
humility  and  love.  He  came  not  to  hush  the  natural  music  of  men's 
lives,  nor  to  fill  it  with  storm  and  agitation,  but  to  re-tune  every  silver 
chord  in  that  "  harp  of  a  thousand  strings,"  and  to  make  it  echo  with 
the   harmonies  of  heaven. 

And  such  being  the  significance  of  Christ's  life  in  this  lovely  region, 
it  is  strange  that  the  exact  site  of  Capernaum — of  Capernaum,  "  His 
own  City "  (Matt.  ix.  i),  which  witnessed  so  many  of  His  mightiest 
miracles,  which  heard  so  many  of  His  greatest  revelations — should  re- 
main to  this  day  a  matter  of  uncertainty.  That  it  was  indeed  either  at 
Khan  Minyeh  or  at  Tell  Hum  is  reasonably  certain;  but  at  which  .>* 
Both  towns  are  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Bethsaida  and  of  Chorazin ; 
both  are  beside  the  waves  of  Galilee  ;  both  lie  on  the  "  way  of  the 
sea ; "  the  claims  of  both  are  supported  by  powerful  arguments ;  the  de- 
cision in  favor  of  either  involves  difificulties  as  yet  unsolved.  After  visit- 
ing the  scenes,  and  carefully  studying  on  the  spot  the  arguments  of 
travelers  in  many  volumes,  the  preponderance  of  evidence  seems  to  me 
in  favor  of  Tell  Hum.  There,  on  bold  rising  ground,  encumbered  with 
fragments  of  white  marble,  rise  the  ruined  walls  of  what  was  perhaps  a 
synagogue,  built  in  the  florid  and  composite  style  which  marks  the  Her- 
odian  age ;  and  amid  the  rank  grass  and  gigantic  thistles  lie  scattered 
the  remnants  of  pillars  and  architraves  which  prove  that  on  this  spot 
once  stood  a  beautiful  and  prosperous  town.'  At  Khan  Minyeh  there  is 
nothing  but  a  common  ruined  caravansary  and  gray  mounded  heaps, 
which  may  or  may  not  be  the  ruins  of  ruins.  But  whichever  of  the  two 
was  the  site  on  which  stood  the  home  of  Peter — which  was  also  the 
home  of  Christ  (Matt.  viii.  14) — either  is  desolate  ;  even  the  wandering 
Bedawy  seems  to  shun  those  ancient  ruins,  where  the  fo.x  and  the  jackal 

I  Major  Wilson,  R.E.,  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund,  found  that  the  plan  of  the  large  white 
building  at  Tell  Hftm  consisted  of  "  four  rows  of  seven  columns  each  .  .  .  surrounded  by  a  blank 
wall,  ornamented  outside  with  pilasters,  and  apparently  a  heavy  cornice  of  late  date  ;  .  .  but  what 
puzz'.es  me  is  that  the  entrance  was  on  the  south  side,  which  does  not  seem  to  be  usual  in  synagogues. 
The  synagogue  was  surrounded  by  another  building  of  later  date,  also  well  built  and  ornamented. " 


144  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

prowl  at  night.  The  sad  and  solemn  woe  that  was  uttered  upon  the  then 
bright  and  flourishing  city  has  been  fulfilled  :  "  And  thou,  Capernaum, 
which  art  exalted  to  heaven,  shalt  be  thrust  down  to  hell :  for  if  the 
mighty  works,  which  have  been  done  in  thee,  had  been  done  in  Sodom, 
it  had  remained  unto  this  day."  ' 

I  Luke  X.  15  ;  Matt.  xi.  23. — The  arguments  about  the  site  of  Capernaum  would  fill  several  volumes. 
The  reader  may  find  most  of  them  in  Dr.  Robinson,  Bibl.  Researches,  iii.  288 — 294  ;  Wilson,  Lands  of  the 
BibUyVi.  139 — 149;  Ritter,  yordan,  335 — 343;  Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  352  seqq.,  &c.  Some 
new  arguments  are  adduced  in  Mr.  McGregor's  Rob  Roy  on  the  jfordan.  The  researches  of  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund,  under  Major  Wilson,  seem  to  me  to  strengthen  the  case  in  favor  of  Tell  Hflm  very 
considerably  ;  and  Tell  Hum,  "the  ruined  mound  of  Hum,"  is  a  very  natural  corruption  of  Kefr  Nahiim, 
"  the  village  of  A'aAtim." — As  this  chapter  is  on  the  scene  of  the  ministry,  it  may  be  well  to  observe  that 
the  true  version  of  the  famous  prophecy  in  Isa.  ix.  I  is,  "  As  of  old  He  lightly  esteemed  the  land  of 
Zebulun  and  the  land  of  Naphtali  ;  so,  in  the  latter  time,  //e  hath  made  her  glorioui  by  the  way  of  the 
•ea,"  &.C. 


DRIVING    THE    MONEY-CHANGERS    FROM    THE   TEMPLE. Jolin  ii.    1 5. 


r 


•«fefi 


CHAPTER    XIII, 


JESUS     AT     THE     PASSOVER. 


"  The  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall  suddenly  come  to  His  Temple." — Mal.  iH.  i. 

HE  stay  of  Jesus  at  Capernaum  on  this  occasion 
was  very  short,"  and  it  is  not  improbable  that 
He  simply  awaited  there  the  starting  of  the  great 
caravan  of  pilgrims  who,  at  this  time,  were 
about  to  wend  their  way  to  the  great  feast  at 
Jerusalem. 

The  Synoptists  are  silent  respecting  any  visit 
of  Christ  to  the  Passover  between  His  twelfth 
year  till  His  death;''  and  it  is  St.  John  alone 
who,  true  to  the  purpose  and  characteristics  of 
his  Gospel,  mentions  this  earliest  Passover  of 
Christ's  ministry,  or  gives  us  any  particluars  that 
took  place  during  its  progress.^ 

The  main  event  which  distinguished  it  was 
the  purification  of  the  Temple — an  act  so  ineffectual  to  conquer  the  be- 
setting vice  of  the  Jews,  that  He  was  obliged  to  repeat  it,  with  expres- 
sions still  more  stern,  at  the  close  of  His  ministry,  and  only  four  days 
before  his  death.* 

1  John  ii.  12  :   "Not  many  days." 

2  But  just  as  St.  John  dictinctly  implies  the  Galilean  ministry  (vii.  3,  4),  so  the  Synoptists  distinctly 
imply  that  there  must  have  been  a  Judean  ministry  ;  e.g.,  Judas  is  a  Jew,  and  Joseph  of  Arimathaea ;  and 
our  Lord  was  well  known  to  people  at  and  near  Jerusalem  (see  Matt.  iv.  25  ;.  xxiii.  37  ;  Mark  iii.  7,  8,  22  ; 
xi.  2,  3  ;  xiv.  14  ;  xv.  43 — 46  ;  and  compare  Matt.  xiii.  57).  In  Luke  iv.  44  there  is  good  MS.  authority 
(X,  B,  C,  L,  &c.)  for  the  reading,  "  He  preached  in  the  synagogues  of  Judea."  "  The  vague  and  shifting 
outlines  of  the  Synoptists,"  says  Mr.  Sanday,  "  allow  ample  room  for  all  the  insertions  that  are  made  in 
them  with  so  much  precision  by  St.  John."     See  too  the  important  testimony  of  St.  Peter  (Acts  x.  37,  39). 

3  Other  Passovers  mentioned  are  John  vi.  4  ;  xi.  55.  The  feast  of  v.  i  would  make  four  Passovers,  if 
it  were  certain  that  a  Passover  were  intended,  and  in  any  case  we  shall  in  the  course  of  the  narrative  find 
much  to  confirm  the  opinion  of  Eusebius  and  Theodoret,  that  the  ministry  lasted  three  years  and  a  few 
months. 

4  Matt.  xxi.  12,  13  ;  Mark  xi.  15 — 17  ;  Luke  xix.  45.  It  seems  impossible  to  believe  that  the  two  nar- 
ratives refer  to  the  same  event.  The  consequences  of  that  act,  and  the  answer  which  He  then  gives  to  the 
priests  who  asked  for  some  proof  of  His  commission  to  exercise  this  authority,  are  quite  different. 

145  •  10 


146  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

We  have  already  seen  what  vast  crowds  flocked  to  the  Holy  City 
at  the  great  annual  feast.  Then,  as  now,  that  immense  multitude,  com- 
posed of  pilgrims  from  every  land,  and  proselytes  of  every  nation, 
brought  with  them  many  needs.  The  traveler  who  now  visits  Jerusalem 
at  Easter  time  will  make  his  way  to  the  gates  of  the  Church  of  the 
Sepulcher  through  a  crowd  of  venders  of  relics,  souvenirs,  and  all  kinds 
of  objects,  who,  squatting  on  the  ground,  fill  all  the  vacant  space  before 
the  church,  and  overflow  into  the  adjoining  street.  Far  more  numerous 
and  far  more  noisome  must  have  been  the  buyers  and  sellers  who 
choked  the  avenues  leading  to  the  Temple,  in  the  Passover  to  which 
Jesus  now  went  among  the  other  pilgrims;'  for  what  they  had  to  sell 
were  not  only  trinkets  and  knick-knacks,  such  as  are  now  sold  to  Easter 
pilgrims,  but  oxen,  and  sheep,  and  doves.  On  both  sides  of  the  eastern 
gate — the  gate  Shusan — as  far  as  Solomon's  porch,  there  had  long  been 
established  the  shops  of  merchants  and  the  banks  of  money-changers. 
The  latter  were  almost  a  necessity ;  for,  twenty  days  before  the 
Passover,  the  priests  began  to  collect  the  old  sacred  tribute  of  half  a 
shekel  paid  yearly  by  every  Israelite,  whether  rich  or  poor,  as  atone- 
ment money  for  his  soul,  and  applied  to  the  expenses  of  the  Tabernacle 
service.'  Now  it  would  not  be  lawful  to  pay  this  in  the  coinage  brought 
from  all  kinds  of  governments,  sometimes  represented  by  wretched 
counters  of  brass  and  copper,  and  always  defiled  with  heathen  symbols 
and  heathen  inscriptions.  It  was  lawful  to  send  this  money  to  the 
priests  from  a  distance,  but  every  Jew  who  presented  himself  in  the 
Temple  preferred  to  pay  it  in  person.  He  was  therefore  obliged  to 
procure  the  little  silver  coin  in  return  for  his  own  currency,  and  the 
money-changers  charged  him  five  per  cent,  as  the  usual  kolbon  or  agio. 
Had  this  trafficking  been  confined  to  the  streets  immediately  adjacent 
to  the  holy  building,  it  would  have  been  excusable,  though  not  alto- 
gether seemly.  Such  scenes  are  described  by  heathen  writers  as  occur- 
ring round  the  Temple  of  Venus  at  Mount  Eryx,  and  of  the  Syrian 
goddess  at  Hierapolis — nay,  even,  to  come  nearer  home,  such  scenes 
once  occurred  in  our  own  St.  Paul's.  But  the  mischief  had  not  stopped 
here.  The  vicinity  of  the  Court  of  Gentiles,  with  its  broad  spaces  and 
long  arcades,  had  been  too  tempting  to  Jewish  greed.  We  learn  from 
the    Talmud    that    a    certain    Babha    Ben     Buta    had    been    the    first    to 

1  The  date  of  this  Passover  was  perhaps  April,  A.D.  28. 

2  Exod.  XXX.  II  — 16. 


JESUS  AT  THE  PASSOVER.  147 

introduce  "3,000  sheep  of  the  flocks  of  Kedar  into  the  MounUv^i  of  the 
House " — i.e.,  into  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  and  therefore,  within  the 
consecrated  precincts.  The  profane  example  was  eagerly  followed.  The 
chanujdth  of  the  shop-keepers,  the  exchange  booths  of  the  usurers,  grad- 
ually crept  into  the  sacred  inclosure.  There,  in  the  Actual  Court  of 
the  Gentiles,  steaming  with  heat  in  the  burning  April  day,  and  filling 
the  Temple  with  stench  and  filth,  were  penned  whole  flocks  of  sheep  and 
oxen,'  while  the  drovers  and  pilgrims  stood  bartering  and  bargaining 
around  them.  There  were  the  men  with  their  great  wicker  cages  filled  with 
doves,  and  under  the  shadow  of  the  arcades,  formed  by  quadruple  rows 
of  Corinthian  columns,  sat  the  money-changers,  with  their  tables  covered 
with  piles  of  various  small  coins,  while,  as  they  reckoned  and  wrangled 
in  the  most  dishonest  of  trades,  their  greedy  eyes  twinkled  with  the 
lust  of  gain.  And  this  was  the  entrance-court  to  the  Temple  of  the 
Most  High  !  The  court  which  was  a  witness  that  that  bouse  should  be 
a  House  of  Prayer  for  all  nations  had  been  degraded  into  a  place 
which,  for  foulness,  was  more  like  shambles,  and  for  bustling  commerce 
more  like  a  densely-crowded  bazaar ;  while  the  lowing  of  oxen,  the 
bleating  of  sheep,  the  Babel  of  many  languages,  the  huckstering  and 
wrangling,  and  the  clinking  of  money  and  of  balances  (perhaps  not 
always  just),  might  be  heard  in  the  adjoining  courts,  disturbing  the 
chant  of  the  Levites  and  the  prayers  of  priests  ! 

Filled  with  a  righteous  scorn  at  all  this  mean  irreverence,  burning 
with  irresistible  and  noble  indignation,  Jesus,  on  entering  the  Temple, 
made  a  scourge  of  the  rushes  that  lay  on  the  floor ;  and  in  order  to 
cleanse  the  sacred  court  of  its  worst  pollutions,  first  drove  out,  indis- 
criminately, the  sheep  and  oxen  and  the  low  crowd  who  tended  them.' 
Then  going  to  the  tables  of  the  money-changers.  He  overthrew  them 
where  they  stood,  upsetting  the  carefully-arranged  heaps  of  heterogene- 
ous coinage,  and  leaving  the  owners  to  grope  and  hunt  for  their  scat- 
tered money  on  the  polluted  floor.  Even  to  those  who  sold  doves  He 
issued  the  mandate  to  depart,  less  sternly  indeed,  because  the  dove  was 
the  offering  of  the  poor,  and  there  was  less  desecration  and  foulness  in 
the    presence    there  of    those    lovely  emblems  of    innocence    and    purity ; 

I  Their  number  may  be  conjectured  from  the  fact  that  Herod  alone  sacrificed  300  oxen  at  the  conse- 
cration of  the  new  Temple.  Josephus  adds  that  Herod's  example  was  followed  by  each  according  to  his 
ability,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  set  down  correctly  the  vast  number  of  the  sacrifices. 

a  John  ii.  15.  That  the  scourge  was  for  the  men  as  well  as  the  cattle,  is  clear  from  the  "  all"  in  verse 
15.  On  this  occasion,  however,  our  Lord  used  the  expression  "  a  house  of  merchandise,"  not  as  after, 
wards,  the  sterner  censure,  "  a  den  of  robbers."     (Cf.  Jer.  vii.  10,  11.) 


14S  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

nor  could  He  overturn  the  tables  of  the  dove-sellers  lest  the  birds  snould 
be  hurt  in  their  cages  ;  but  still,  even  to  those  who  sold  doves,  He 
authoritatively  exclaimed,  "  Take  these  things  hence,"  justifying  His 
action  to  the  whole  terrified,  injured,  muttering,  ignoble  crowd  in  no 
other  words  than  the  high  rebuke,  "Make  not  my  Father  s  Iwuse  a  house 
of  fncrchandisc."'  And  His  disciples,  seeing  this  transport  of  inspiring 
and  glorious  anger,  recalled  to  mind  what  David  had  once  written  "to 
the  chief  musician  upon  Shoshannim,"  for  the  service  of  that  very 
Temple,   "  The  zeal  of  thine  house  shall  even  devour  me." 

Why  did  not  this  multitude  of  ignorant  pilgrims  resist  ?  Why  did 
these  greedy  chafferers  content  themselves  with  dark  scowls  and  mut- 
tered maledictions,  while  they  suffered  their  oxen  and  sheep  to  be  chased 
into  the  streets  and  themselves  ejected,  and  their  money  flung  rolling  on 
the  floor,  by  one  who  was  then  young  and  unknown,  and  in  the  garb  of 
despised  Galilee  ?  Why,  in  the  same  way  we  might  ask,  did  Saul  suffer 
Samuel  to  beard  him  in  the  very  presence  of  his  army?  Why  did  David 
abjectly  obey  the  orders  of  Joab  ?  Why  did  Ahab  not  dare  to  arrest 
Elijah  at  the  door  of  Naboth's  vineyard?  Because  sin  is  weakness;  be- 
cause there  is  in  the  world  nothing  so  abject  as  a  guilty  conscience, 
nothing  so  invincible  as  the  sweeping  tide  of  a  Godlike  indignation 
against  all  that  is  base  and  wrong.  How  could  these  paltry  sacrilegious 
buyers  and  sellers,  conscious  of  wrong-doing,  oppose  that  scathing  re- 
buke, or  face  the  lightnings  of  those  eyes  that  were  enkindled  by  an 
outraged  holiness  ?  When  Phinehas  the  priest  was  zealous  for  the  Lord 
of  Hosts,  and  drove  through  the  bodies  of  the  prince  of  Simeon  and 
the  Midianitish  woman  with  one  glorious  thrust  of  his  indignant  spear, 
why  did  not  guilty  Israel  avenge  that  splendid  murder?  Why  did  not 
every  man  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon  become  a  Goel  to  the  dauntless  assas- 
sin ?  Because  Vice  cannot  stand  for  one  moment  before  Virtue's  up- 
lifted arm.  Base  and  groveling  as  they  were,  these  money-mongering 
Jews  felt  in  all  that  remnant  of  their  souls  which  was  not  yet  eaten 
away  by  infidelity  and  avarice,  that  the  Son  of  Man  was  right. 

Nay,  even  the  Priests  and  Pharisees,  and  Scribes  and  Levites,  devoured 
as  they  were  by  pride  and  formalism,  could  not    condemn    an    act  which 

I  C(.  Luke  ii.  49.  We  find  in  the  Talmud  that  doves  were  usually  sold  in  the  "  shops"  belonging  to 
the  family  of  Annas  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  who  had  so  multiplied  the  occasions  for  offering  them,  that 
a  single  dove  cost  a  gold  piece,  until  this  nefarious  artificial  value  was  reduced  by  the  teachings  of  R. 
Simeon,  the  son  of  Gamaliel.  Perhaps  the  profitableness  of  the  trade  had  caused  its  extension  to  the  Tern 
pie  courts. 


JESUS  AT  THE  PASSOVER.  149 

might  have  been  performed  by  a  Nehemiah  or  a  Judas  Maccabseus,  and 
which  agreed  with  all  that  was  purest  and  best  in  their  traditions.'  But 
when  they  had  heard  of  this  deed,  or  witnessed  it,  and  had  time  to  re- 
cover  from  the  breathless  mixture  of  admiration,  disgust,  and  astonish 
ment  which  it  inspired,  they  came  to  Jesus,  and  though  they  did  not  dara 
to  condemn  what  He  had  done,  yet  half  indignantly  asked  Him  for  some 
sign  that  He  had  a  right  to  act  thus/ 

Our  Lord's  answer  in  its  full  meaning  was  far  beyond  their  compre 
hension,  and  in  what  appeared  to  be  its  meaning  filled  them  with  a  per 
feet  stupor  of  angry  amazement.  "Destroy,"  He  said,  "this  Temple,'' 
and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up." 

Destroy  this  Temple  ! — the  Temple  on  which  a  king  pre-eminent  fov 
his  wealth  and  magnificence  had  lavished  his  most  splendid  resources, 
and  thereby  almost  reconciled  the  Jews  to  an  intolerable  tyranny ;  thft 
Temple  for  the  construction  of  which  one  thousand  wagons  had  been 
required,  and  ten  thousand  workmen  enrolled,  and  a  thousand  priests  in 
.  sacerdotal  vestments  employed  to  lay  the  stones  which  the  workmen  had 
already  hewn ;  the  Temple  which  was  a  marvel  to  the  world  for  its 
colossal  substructions  of  marble,  its  costly  mosaics,  its  fragrant  woods, 
its  glittering  roofs,  the  golden  vine  with  its  hanging  clusters  sculptured 
over  the  entrance  door,  the  embroidered  vails,  enwoven  with  flowers  of 
purple,  the  profuse  magnificence  of  its  silver,  gold,  and  precious  stones.* 

1  E.g.,  in  the  Rabbis  we  find  R.  Eliezer  Ben  Zadok  severely  blamed  for  practicing  merchandise  in  a 
synagogue  which  he  himself  had  built  at  Alexandria.  Gfrorer  has  pointed  out  the  remarkable  fact  that  in 
the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  at  the  last  verse  of  Zechariah  (xiv.  21),  the  word  "trader"  is  substituted  for 
"Canaanite."     "There  shall  be  no  more  the  trader  in  the  house  of  the  Lord." 

2  "The  Jews"  in  John  ii.  18  means,  as  usual  in  this  Gospel,  "  the  opponents  of  Jesus."  The  term 
hardly  occurs  in  the  other  Gospels,  except  in  the  title  of  the  cross,  "  King  of  the  Jews  ; "  but  to  St.  John, 
'  standing  within  the  boundary  of  the  Christian  age,  .  .  .  the  name  appears  to  be  the  true  antithesis 
to  Christianity." 

3  John  ii.  19.  More  literally,  "  shrine,"  not  "  temple,"  as  before  in  verse  14.  Consequently  the  asser- 
tion of  the  Jews  was  not  strictly  accurate,  for  "  this  shrine  "  (as  distinguished  from  "  the  temple  "),  with  all 
its  porticoes,  had  been  finished  in  eight  or  nine  years.  The  Talmud  says  that  to  aid  the  building,  the  rain 
which  fell  had  been  dried  with  miraculous  quickness.  The  sign  which  Jesus  gives  in  His  prediction.  Cf. 
Micaiah  (i  Kings  xxii.  24  ;  Jer.  xx.  i — 6,  &c.). 

4  See  the  elaborate  and  gloating  description  of  Josephus  (Antt.  xv.  11,  §  §  3 — 5).  It  appears,  however, 
that  the  actual  Holy  Place  had  been  "  built  by  the  priests  in  a  year  and  six  months."  The  expression  of 
the  Jews  applied  to  the  whole  area  with  its  splendid  colonnades,  royal  citadel,  &c.  Josephus  says  (xv.  11, 
§  i)  that  Herod  had  begun  the  Temple  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  his  reign — i.e.,  between  Nisan  i,  A.U.C. 
734  and  735.  This  would  give  us  A.U.C.  7S1 — 7S2,  A.D.  2S  or  29,  for  our  Lord's  first  Passover  ;  and  as  the 
Temple  was  begun  in  Kisleu,  the  exact  date  is  probably  A.D.  28.  This  agrees  with  the  date  given  in  Luke 
iii.  I,  if  we  suppose  that  he  dates  from  the  first  year  of  Tiberius'  joint  reign,  as  we  seem  entitled  to  infer 
from  the  evidence  of  coins,  &c.  Similarly  in  Jos.  B.  J.,  i.  21,  §  i,  Herod  is  said  to  have  begun  the  Tem- 
ple in  the  fifteenth  year  of  his  reign,  which  is  no  contradiction  to  Antt.  xv.  11,  §  i,  the  reign  in  the  former 
instance  being  dated  from  the  death  of  Augustus,  in  the  latter  from  the  confirmation  of  Herod  by  the 
Romans. 


(50  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORV. 

It  had  been  already  forty-six  years  in  building,  and  was  yet  far  from 
finished ;  and  this  unknown  Galilean  youth  bade  them  destroy  it,  and  He 
would  raise  it  in  three  days  !  Such  was  the  literal  and  evidently  false 
construction  which  they  chose  to  put  upon  His  words,  though  the  re- 
corded practice  of  their  own  great  prophets  might  have  shown  them 
that  a  mystery  lay  hidden  in  this  sign  which   He  gave.' 

How  ineffaceable  was  the  impression  produced  by  the  words,  is  best 
proved  by  the  fact  that  more  than  three  years  afterwards  it  was  this, 
more  than  all  His  other  discourses,  which  His  accusers  and  false  wit- 
nesses tried  to  pervert  into  a  constructive  evidence  of  guilt  ;  nay,  it  was 
even  this,  more  than  anything  else,  with  which  the  miserable  robber 
taunted  Him  upon  the  very  cross.  They  were  obliged,  indeed,  entirelj' 
to  distort  His  words  into  "/  mn  able  to  destroy  the  Temple  of  God,"  =  or 
"  I  will  destroy  this  Temple  made  with  hands,  and  in  three  days  will 
build  another."  2  He  had  never  used  these  expressions,  and  here  also 
their  false  witness  was  so  self-contradictory  as  to  break  down.  But  they 
were  well  aware  that  this  attempt  of  theirs  to  infuse  a  political  and 
seditious  meaning  into  what  He  said  was  best  calculated  to  madden  the 
tribunal  before  which  he  was  arraigned  :  indeed,  so  well  adapted  was  it 
to  this  purpose  that  the  mere  distant  echo,  as  it  were,  of  the  same  words 
was  again  the  main  cause  of  martyrdom  to  His  proto-martyr  Stephen.* 
"But  He  spake,"  says  St.  John,  "of  the  temple  of  His  body,"  and 
he  adds  that  it  was  not  until  His  resurrection  that  His  disciples  fully 
understood  His  words.'  Nor  is  this  astonishing,  for  they  were  words  of 
very  deep  significance.  Hitherto  there  had  been  but  one  Temple  of  the 
true  God,  the  Temple  in  which  He  then  stood — the  Temple  which  sym- 
bolized, and  had  once  at  least,  as  the  Jews  believed,  enshrined  that 
Shechinah,  or  cloud  of  glory,  which  was  the  living  witness  to  God's 
presence  in  the  world.  But  now  the  Spirit  of  God  abode  in  a  Temple 
not  made  w^ith  hands,  even  in  the  sacred  Body  of  the  Son  of  God  made 
flesh.  He  tabernacled  among  us  ;  "  He  had  a  tent  like  ours,  and  of  the 
same  material."  Even  this  was  to  be  done  away.  At  that  great  Pente- 
cost three  years  later,  and  thenceforward  for  ever,  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  was  to  prefer 

"  Before  all  temples  the  upright  heart  and  pure." 

Every    Christian    man    was    to  be,  in  his  mortal    body,  a    temple    of   the 

I  See  Isa.  vii.  ii,  14,  &c.  2  Matt.  xxvi.  6i. 

3  Mark  xiv.  58.  4  Acts  vi.  14. 

5  Ps.  xvi.  10  ;  Hos.  vl.  2 ;  1  Cor.  xv.  4,  &c. 


JESUS  AT  THE  PASSOVER.  151 

Holy  Ghost.  This  was  to  be  the  central  truth,  the  sublimest  privilege 
of  the  New  Dispensation  ;  this  was  to  be  the  object  of  Christ's  depart- 
ure, and  to  make  it  "better  for  us  that  He  should  go  away." 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  amazing  to  the  carnal  mind  that 
walked  by  sight  and  not  by  faith — nothing  more  offensive  to  the  Phar- 
isaic mind  that  clung  to  the  material — than  this  high  truth,  that  his 
sacred  Temple  at  Jerusalem  was  henceforth  to  be  no  longer,  with  any 
special  privilege,  the  place  where  men  were  to  worship  the  Father ;  that, 
in  fact,  it  was  the  truest  Temple  no  longer.  Yet  they  might,  if  they 
had  willed  it,  have  had  some  faint  conception  of  what  Christ  meant. 
They  must  have  known  that  by  the  voice  of  John  He  had  been  pro- 
claimed the  Messiah  ;  they  might  have  realized  what  He  afterwards  said 
to  them,  that  "in  this  place  was  one  greater  than  the  Temple;"  they 
might  have  entered  into  the  remarkable  utterance  of  a  Rabbi  of  their 
own  class — an  utterance  involved  in  the  prophetic  language  of  Daniel  ix. 
24,  and  which  they  ought  therefore  to  have  known — that  the  true  Holy 
of  Holies  was  the  Messiah  Himself. 

And  in  point  of  fact  there  is  an  incidental  but  profoundly  significant 
indication  that  they  had  a  deeper  insight  into  Christ's  real  meaning  than 
they  chose  to  reveal.  For,  still  brooding  on  these  same  words — the  first 
official  words  which  Christ  had  addressed  to  them — when  Jesus  lay  dead 
and  buried  in  the  rocky  tomb,  they  came  to  Pilate  with  the  remarkable 
story,  "  Sir,  we  remember  that  that  deceiver  said,  while  he  was  yet 
alive.  After  three  days  I  will  rise  again."  Now  there  is  no  trace  that 
Jesus  had  ever  used  any  such  words  distinctly  to  them  ;  and  unless  they 
had  heard  the  saying  from  Judas,  or  unless  it  had  been  repeated  by 
common  rumor  derived  from  the  Apostles — i.e.,  unless  the  "we  remem- 
ber "  was  a  distinct  falsehood — they  could  have  been  referring  to  no 
other  occasion  than  this.  And  that  they  should  have  heard  it  from  any  of 
the  disciples  was  most  unlikely  ;  for  over  the  slow  hearts  of  the  Apostles 
these  words  of  our  Lord  seem  to  have  passed  like  the  idle  wind.  In 
spite  of  all  that  He  had  told  them  there  seems  to  have  been  nothing 
which  they  expected  less  than  His  death,  unless  it  were  His  subsequent 
resurrection.  How  then  came  these  Pharisees  and  Priests  to  understand 
better  than  His  own  disciples  what  our  Lord  had  meant?  Because  they 
were  not  like  the  Apostles,  loving,  guileless,  simple-hearted  men  ;  be- 
cause, in  spite  of  all  their  knowledge  and  insight,  their  hearts  were  even 
already  full  of  the  hatred   and  rejection  which  ended  In  Christ's  murder. 


152  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  which  drew  the  guilt  of  His  blood  on  the  heads  of  them  and  of 
their  children. 

But  there  was  yet  another  meaning  which  the  words  involved,  not 
indeed  less  distasteful  to  their  prejudices,  but  none  the  less  full  of  warn- 
ing, and  more  clearly  within  the  range  of  their  understandings.  The 
Temple  was  the  very  heart  of  the  whole  Mosaic  system,  the  head- 
quarters, so  to  speak,  of  the  entire  Levitical  ceremonial.  In  profaning 
that  Temple,  and  suffering  it  to  be  profaned — in  suffering  One  whom 
they  chose  to  regard  as  only  a  poor  Galilean  teacher  to  achieve  that 
purification  of  it  which,  whether  from  supineness,  or  from  self-interest,  or 
from  timidity,  neither  Caiaphas,  nor  Annas,  nor  Hillel,  nor  Shammai,  nor 
Gamaliel,  nor  Herod,  had  ventured  to  attempt — were  they  not,  as  it 
were,  destroying  that  Temple,  abrogating  that  system,  bearing  witness 
by  their  very  actions  that  for  them  its  real  significance  had  passed 
away?  "Finish,  then,"'  He  might  have  implied,  at  once  by  way  of 
prophecy  and  of  permission,  "  finish  without  delay  this  your  work  of  dis- 
solution :  in  three  days  will  I,  as  a  risen  Redeemer,  restore  something 
better  and  greater;  not  a  material  Temple,  but  a  living  Church."  Such 
is  the  meaning  which  St.  Stephen  seems  to  have  seen  in  these  words. 
Such  is  the  meaning  which  is  expanded  in  so  many  passages  by  the 
matchless  reasoning  and  passion  of  St.  Paul.  But  to  this  and  every 
meaning  they  were  deaf,  and  dull,  and  blind.  They  seem  to  have  gone 
away  silent  indeed,  but  sullen  and  dissatisfied ;  suspicious  of,  yet  in- 
different to,  the  true  solution  ;  ignorant,  yet  too  haughty  and  too  angry 
to  inquire. 

What  great  works  Jesus  did  on  this  occasion  we  cannot  tell. 
Whatever  they  were,  they  caused  some  to  believe  on  Him  ;  but  it  was 
not  as  yet  a  belief  in  which  He  could  trust.  Their  mere  intellectual 
witness  to  His  claims  He  needed  not ;  and  their  hearts,  untouched  as 
yet,  were,  as  He  knew  by  divine  insight,  cold  and  barren,  treacherous 
and  false." 

I  John  ii,  19,  yli;(j ore  ("  destroy  at  once").     It  is  obviously  hypothetic.     Cf.  Matt.  xii.  33. 
3  John  ii.  23 — 25. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 


NICODEMUS. 


^;€-^>C 


'  The  Teacher  of  Israel." — John  iii.  lo. 


CASTE  or  a  sect  may  consist  for  the  most  part 
of  haughty  fanatics  and  obstinate  bigots,  but  it 
will  be  strange  indeed  if  there  are  to  be  found 
among  them  no  exceptions  to  the  general  char- 
acteristics ;  strange  if  honesty,  candor,  sensi- 
bility, are  utterly  dead  among  them  all.  Even 
among  rulers,  scribes,  Pharisees,  and  wealthy 
members  of  the  Sanhedrin,  Christ  found  be- 
lievers and  followers.  The  earliest  and  most 
remarkable  of  these  was  Nicodemus,  a  rich  man, 
a  ruler,  a  Pharisee,  and  a  member  of  the 
Sanhedrin." 

A  constitutional  timidity  is,  however,  observable  in  all 
which  the  Gospels  tell  us  about  Nicodemus ;  a  timidity 
which  could  not  be  wholly  overcome  even  by  his  honest 
desire  to  befriend  and  acknowledge  One  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  prophet, 
even  if  he  did  not  at  once  recognize  in  Him  the  promised  Messiah. 
Thus  the  few  words  which  he  interposed  to  check  the  rash  injustice  of 
his  colleagues  are  cautiously  rested  on  a  general  principle,  and  betray  no 
indication  of  his  personal  faith  in  the  Galilean  whom  his  sect  despised. 
And  even  when  the  power  of  Christ's  love,  manifested  on  the  cross,  had 
made  the  most  timid  disciples  bold,  Nicodemus  does  not  come  forward 
with  his  splendid  gifts  of  affection  until  the  example  had  been  set  by 
one  of  his  own  wealth,  and  rank,  and  station  in  society." 

1  Matt.  i.\.  iS  ;  Mark  xii.  28.  Strauss  considers  this  conversation  with  Nicodemus  to  have  been  in- 
vented to  show  that  the  followers  of  Jesus  were  not  all  obscure  and  poor  !  But  the  Fathers  and  early 
Christians  considered  it  to  be  their  glory,  not  their  reproach,  that  to  the  poor  the  Gospel  was  preached  (see 
I  Cor.  i.  26 — 2g).  It  is  with  no  touch  of  regret  that  Jerome  writes,  "  The  Church  of  Christ  was  got  together, 
not  out  of  the  Academy  and  the  Lyceum,  but  out  of  the  common  and  vulgar  herd." 

2  John  vii.  50  ;  xix.  39.  I  have  borrowed  a  few  words  from  my  article  on  "  Nicodemus"  in  Smith's 
Z>ict.  ff  lh(  Bible.  The  name,  which  seems  to  have  been  not  uncommon  among  the  Jews,  is  doubtless,  like 
so  ma^y  Je'^'ish  names  at  this  period,  derived  from  the  Greek.     In  the  Talmud   it  appears  under  the  form 


154  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Such  was  the  Rabbi  who,  with  that  mingled  candor  and  fear  of  man 
which  characterize  all  that  we  know  of  him,  came  indeed  to  Jesus,  but 
came  cautiously  by  night.  He  was  anxious  to  know  more  of  this  young 
Galilean  Prophet,  whom  he  was  too  honest  not  to  recognize  as  a  teacher 
come  from  God  ;  but  he  thought  himself  too  eminent  a  person  among 
his  sect  to  compromise  his  dignity,  and  possibly  even  his  safety,  by 
visiting   Him  in  public. 

Although  he  is  alluded  to  in  only  a  few  touches,  because  of  that 
high  teaching  which  Jesus  vouchsafed  to  him,  yet  the  impression  left 
upon  us  by  his  individuality  is  inimitably  distinct,  and  wholly  beyond  the 
range  of  invention.  His  very  first  remark  shows  the  indirect  character 
of  his  mind — his  way  of  suggesting  rather  than  stating  what  he  wished — 
the  half-patronizing  desire  to  ask,  yet  the  half-shrinking  reluctance  to 
frame  his  question — the  admission  that  Jesus  had  come  "from  God,"  yet 
the  hesitating  implication  that  it  was  only  as  "a  teacher,"  and  the  sup- 
pressed inquiry,   "What  must   I   do?" 

Our  Lord  saw  deep  into  his  heart,  and  avoiding  all  formalities  or 
discussion  of  preliminaries,  startles  him  at  once  with  the  solemn  uncom- 
promising address,  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be 
born  again  [or  "from  above"],'  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God." 
My  disciple  must  be  mine  in  heart  and  soul,  or  he  is  no  disciple  at  all ; 
the  question  is  not  of  doing  or  not  doing,  but  of  being. 

That  answer  startled  Nicodemus  into  deep  earnestness  ;  but  like  the 
Jews  in  the  last  chapter  (ii.  20),  he  either  could  not,  or  would  not, 
grasp  its  full  significance.  He  prefers  to  play,  with  a  kind  of  querulous 
surprise,  about  the  mere  literal  meaning  of  the  words,  which  he  chooses 
to  interpret  in  the  most  physical  and  unintelligible  sense.  Mere 
logomachy  like  this  Jesus  did  not  pause  to  notice ;  He  only  sheds  a 
fresh  ray  of  light  on  the  reiteration  of  His  former  warning.  He  spoke, 
not  of  the  fleshly  birth,  but  of  that  spiritual  regeneration  of  which  no 
man  could  predict    the  course  or  method,  any  more  than  they  could  tell 

Nakdimon,  and  some  would  derive  it  from  nakt,  "  innocent,"  and  i/am,  "  blood."  Tradition  says  that  after 
the  Resurrection  (which  would  supply  the  last  outward  impulse  necessary  to  confirm  his  faith  and  increase 
his  courage)  he  became  a  professed  disciple  of  Christ,  and  received  baptism  from  Peter  and  John  ;  that  the 
Jews  then  stripped  him  of  his  oflSce,  beat  him,  and  drove  him  from  Jerusalem  ;  that  his  kinsman  Gamaliel 
received  and  sheltered  him  in  his  country  house  till  death,  and  finally  gave  him  honorable  burial  near 
the  body  of  St.  Stephen.  If  he  be  identical  with  the  Nakdimon  Ben  Gorion  of  the  Talmud,  he  outlived  the 
fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  his  family  were  reduced  from  wealth  to  such  horrible  poverty  that  whereas  the  bridal 
bed  of  his  daughter  had  been  covered  with  a  dower  of  12,000  denarii,  she  was  subsequently  seen  endeavor- 
ing to  support  life  by  picking  the  grains  from  the  ordure  of  cattle  in  the  streets. 
I  The  two  meanings  do  not  exclude  each  other. 


NICODEMUS.  155 

the  course  of  the  night  breeze  that  rose  and  fell  and  whispered  fitfully 
outside  the  little  tabernacle  where  they  sat,"  but  which  must  be  a  birth 
by  water  and  by  the  Spirit — a  purification,  that  is,  and  a  renewal — an 
outward  symbol  and  an  inward  grace — a  death  unto  sin  and  a  new  birth 
unto  righteousness. 

Nicodemus  could  only  answer  by  an  expression  of  incredulous 
amazement.  A  Gentile  might  need,  as  it  were,  a  new  birth  when  ad- 
mitted into  the  Jewish  communion  ;  but  he — a  son  of  Abraham,  a  Rabbi, 
a  zealous  keeper  of  the  Law — could  he  need  that  new  birth  ?  How 
could  such  things  be  ? 

"  Art  thou  the  teacher  (<>  diSaanaXoi)  of  Israel,"  asked  our  Lord,  "and 
knowest  not  these  things?"  Art  thou  the  third  member  of  the  Sanhe- 
drin,  the  chdkdm  or  wise  man,  and  yet  knowest  not  the  earliest,  simplest 
lesson  of  the  initiation  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  .?  If  thy  knowledge 
be  thus  carnal,  thus  limited — if  thus  thou  stamblest  on  the  threshold, 
how  canst  thou  understand  those  deeper  truths  which  He  only  who  came 
down  from  heaven  can  make  known  ?  The  question  was  half  sorrowful, 
half  reproachful ;  but  He  proceeded  to  reveal  to  this  Master  in  Israel 
things  greater  and  stranger  than  these  ;  even  the  salvation  of  man  ren- 
dered possible  by  the  sufferings  and  exaltation  of  the  Son  of  Man  ;  °  the 
love  of  God  manifested  in  sending  His  only  begotten  Son,  not  to  judge, 
but  to  save  ;  the  deliverance  for  all  through  faith  in  Him  ;  the  condem- 
nation which  must  fall  on  those  who  willfully  reject  the  truths  He  came 
to  teach. 

These  were  indeed  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven — truths 
once  undreamed  of,  but  now  fully  revealed.  And  although  they  violated 
every  prejudice,  and  overthrew  every  immediate  hope  of  this  aged  in- 
quirer— though  to  learn  them  he  must  unlearn  the  entire  intellectual 
habits  of  his  life  and  training — yet  we  know  from  the  sequel  that  they 
must  have  sunk  into  his  inmost  soul.  Doubtless  in  the  further  discus- 
sion of  them  the  night  deepened  around  them;  and  in  the  memorable 
words  about  the  light  and  the  darkness  with  which  the  interview  was 
closed,  Jesus  gently  rebuked  the  fear  of  man  which  led  this  great  Rabbi 

1  That  this  was  the  character  of  the  allusion  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  use  of  the  word  signifying 
"the  breeze,"  rather  than  the  one  meaning  "the  wind."  To  make  it  mean  as  many  do,  "The  Spiri 
breathes  where  it  wills,"  &c.,  gives  an  inferior  sense.  The  meaning  is,  "  The  wind  breatheth  where  it 
listeth  ;  so  it  is  with  every  one  born  of  the  Spirit."     Alford  refers  to  other  instances  of  the  same  idiom. 

2  "  To  be  raised  on  high  "  (ver.  14),  is  both  literal  and  metaphorical — uplifted  on  the  cross,  exalted  to 
the  kingdom.     Cf.  Gen.  xi.  13  ;  John  xii.  32  ;  and  Luke  v.  35. 


156  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

to  seek  the  shelter  of  midnight  for  a  deed  which  was  not  a  deed  of 
darkness,  needing  to  be  concealed,  but  which  was  indeed  a  coming  to 
the  true  and  only  Light. 

Whatever  lessons  were  uttered,  or  signs  were  done  during  the  re- 
mainder of  this  First  Passover,  no  further  details  are  given  us  about 
them.  Finding  a  stolid  and  insensate  opposition,  our  Lord  left  Jerusalem, 
and  went  with  His  disciples  "into  Judea,"  apparently  to  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan,  for  there  St.  John  tells  us  that  His  disciples  began  to  baptize.' 
This  baptism,  a  distant  foreshadowing  of  the  future  sacrament,  Christ 
seems  rather  to  have  permitted  than  to  have  directly  organized.  As  yet 
it  was  the  time  of  Preparation  ;  as  yet  the  inauguration  of  His  ministry 
had  been,  if  we  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  of  an  isolated  and  ten- 
tative description.  Theologians  have  sought  for  all  kinds  of  subtle  and 
profound  explanations  of  this  baptism  by  the  disciples.  Nothing,  how- 
ever, that  has  been  suggested  throws  any  further  light  upon  the  subject, 
and  we  can  only  believe  that  Jesus  permitted  for  a  time  this  simple  and 
beautiful  rite  as  a  sign  of  discipleship,  and  as  the  national  symbol  of  a 
desire  for  that  lustration  of  the  heart  which  was  essential  to  all  who 
would  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

John  the  Baptist  was  still  continuing  his  baptism  of  repentance.  Here, 
too,  theologians  have  discovered  a  deep  and  mysterious  difiiculty,  and 
have  entered  into  elaborate  disquisitions  on  the  relations  between  the 
baptism  of  Jesus  and  of  John.  Nothing,  however,  has  been  elicited 
from  the  discussion.'  Inasmuch  as  the  full  activity  of  Christ's  ministry 
had  not  yet  begun,  the  baptism  of  St.  John  no  less  than  that  of  the 
disciples  must  be  still  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  repentance  and  purity. 
Nor  will  any  one  who  is  convinced  that  Repentance  is  "  the  younger 
brother  of  Innocence,"  and  that  for  all  who  have  sinned  repentance  is 
the  very  work  of  life,  be  surprised  that  the  earliest  preaching  of  Jesus 
as  of  John  was — "  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."^ 
The  time  of  preparation,  of  preliminary  testing,  was  not  over  yet ;  it  was 
indeed  drawing  to  a  conclusion,  and  this  baptism  by  the  disciples  was 
but  a  transitory  phase  of  the  opening  ministry.     And  the  fact  that  John 

1  He  would  not  //iotx^//' baptize;  the  reasons  for  this  would  be  analogous  to  those  which  prevented  St. 
Paul  from  frequently  baptizing,  but  far  deeper  and  more  peremptory. 

2  Ewald  thinks  that  the  baptism  of  the  disciples  only  differed  from  that  of  John  in  the  two  respects  that 
— (i.)it  was  now  directed  to  Jesus  definitely  as  the  Messiah  to  whom  John  had  borne  witness  ;  and  (ii.)  that 
it  was  an  initiation  not  into  painful  penitences,  but  into  a  life  of  divine  joy  and  love. 

3  Matt,  xviii.  3;  Mark  i.  15. 


NICODEMUS.  157 

no  longer  preachv^d  in  th^  wilderness,  or  baptized  at  Bethany,  but  had 
found  it  desirable  to  leave  the  scene  of  his  brief  triumph  and  glory, 
marked  that  there  was  a  waning  in  the  brightness  of  that  star  of  the 
Gospel  dawn.  The  humble  spirit  of  John — in  all  of  whose  words  a  deep 
undertone  of  sadness  is  traceable — accepted,  in  entire  submissiveness  to 
the  will  of  God,  the  destiny  of  a  brief  and  interrupted  mission. 

He  had  removed  to  ^non,  near  Salim,  a  locality  so  wholly  uncer- 
tain that  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  any  decision  respecting  it.'  Some 
still  came  to  his  baptism,  though  probably  in  diminished  numbers,  for  a 
larger  multitude  now  began  to  flock  to  the  baptism  of  Christ's  disciples. 
But  the  ignoble  jealousy  which  could  not  darken  the  illuminated  soul  of 
the  Forerunner,  found  a  ready  place  in  the  hearts  of  his  followers. 
How  long  it  may  have  smoldered  we  do  not  know,  but  it  was  called 
into  active  display  during  the  controversy  excited  by  the  fact  that  two 
great  Teachers,  of  whom  one  had  testified  to  the  other  as  the  promised 
Messiah,  were  baptizing  large  multitudes  of  people,  although  the  San- 
hedrin  and  all  the  appointed  authorities  of  the  nation  had  declared 
against  their  claims.  Some  Jew^  had  annoyed  the  disciples  of  John  with 
a  dispute  about  purification,  and  they  vented  their  perplexed  and 
mortified  feelings  in  a  complaint  to  their  great  master :  "  Rabbi,  He 
who  was  with  thee  beyond  Jordan,  to  whom  thou  hast  borne  witness,  lo, 
He  is  baptizing,  and  all  men  are  coming  to  Him."  The  significant  sup- 
pression of  the  name,  the  tone  of  irritation  at  what  appeared  to  them 
an  encroachment,  the  scarcely  subdued  resentment  that  any  one  should 
be  a  successful  rival  to  him  whose  words  had  for  a  season  so  deeply 
stirred  the  hearts  of  men,  are  all  apparent  in  this  querulous  address. 
And  in  the  noble  answer  to  it,  all  John's  inherent  greatness  shone  forth. 
He  could  not  enter  into  rivalries,  which  would  be  a  treachery  against  his 
deepest  convictions,  a  falsification  of  his  most  solemn  words.  God  was 
the  sole  source  of  human  gifts,  and  in  His  sight  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  human  greatness.  He  reminded  them  of  his  asseveration  that 
he  was  not  the  Christ,  but  only  His  messenger;  he  was  not  the  bride- 
groom, but    the    bridegroom's  friend,  and  his  heart  was  even  now   being 

1  Jerome,  and  the  great  majority  of  inquirers,  place  it  near  Beth-shean,  or  Scythopolis,  in  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan,  where  there  were  ruins  called  Salumias,  and  a  spring.  The  objection  to  this  is  that  it 
would  be  in  the  limits  of  Samaria.  Robinson  found  a  Salim  east  of  Nablous.  Others  have  fancied  they 
found  places  which  might  answer  the  description  near  Hebron  (cf.  Josh.  xv.  32)  ;  and  even  at  Wady 
Seleim,  five  miles  N.E.  of  Jerusalem.  The  identification  of  the  site  is  of  no  great  importance  for  the 
narrative. 

2  "  With  a  Jew"  seems  to  be  undoubtedly  the  right  reading  in  John  iii.  25. 


158  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

gladdened  by  the  bridegroom's  voice.  Henceforth  he  was  content  to 
decrease ;  content  that  his  httle  light  should  be  swallowed  up  in  the 
boundless  Dawn.  He  was  but  an  earthly  messenger;  but  he  had  put 
the  seal  of  his  most  intense  conviction  to  the  belief  that  God  was  true, 
and  had  given  all  things  to  His  Son,  and  that  through  Him  alone  could 
eternal  life  be  won. 


CHAPTER   XV. 


THE      WOMAN      OF     SAMARIA. 
"  Dost  wish  to  pray  in  a  Temple  ?     Pray  in  thyself,  but  first  be  thou  a  Temple  of  God." — Augustimk. 

J 

HE  Jew  whose  discussions  had  thus  deeply 
moved  the  followers  of  John  may  well  have 
been  one  of  the  prominent  Pharisees  ;  and  our 
Lord  soon  became  aware  that  they  were  watch- 
ing his  proceedings  with  an  unfriendly  eye. 
Their  hostility  to  John  was  a  still  deeper  hos- 
tility against  Him,  for  the  very  reason  that 
His  teaching  was  already  more  successful.  Per- 
haps in  consequence  of  this  determined  rejec- 
tion of  the  earliest  steps  of  His  teaching — per- 
haps also  out  of   regard  for    the    wounded  feel- 


and  again  departed  into  Galilee.'  Being  already  in  the  north 
of  Judea,  He  chose  the  route  which  led  to  Samaria.  The  fanaticism  of 
Jewish  hatred,  the  fastidiousness  of  Jewish  Pharisaism,  which  led  His 
countrymen  when  traveling  alone  to  avoid  that  route,  could  have  no  ex- 
istence for  Him,  and  were  things  rather  to  be  discouraged  than  approved. 
Starting  early  in  the  morning,  to  enjoy  as  many  as  possible  of  the 
cool  hours  for  traveling.  He  stopped  at  length  for  rest  and  refreshment 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Sychar,"  a  city  not  far  from  the  well  in  the  fer- 
tile district  which  the  partiality  of  the  patriarch  Jacob  had  bequeathed 
to  his  favorite  son.  The  well,  like  all  frequented  wells  in  the  East,  was 
doubtless  sheltered  by  a  little  alcove,  in  which  were  seats  of  stone. 

1  The  first  reasons  are  emphasized  by  John  (iv.  2,  3),  the  latter  by  Matt.  iv.  12;  Mark  i.  14.  The 
Synoptists  markedly  make  the  imprisonment  of  John  the  beginning  of  the  Galilean  ministry,  but  the 
Fourth  Gospel  supplies  the  hiatus  which  they  leave. 

2  Sychar  may  possibly  have  been  a  village  nearer  the  well  than  Sichem,  on  the  site  of  the  village  now 
called  El  Askar,  a  name  which  Mr.  Thomson  says  ( Tht  Land  and  tht  Book,  -i.  220)  may  very  easily  have 
been  corrupted  from  Sychar. 


i6o  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

It  was  the  hour  of  noon,'  and  weary  as  He  was  with  the  long  jour- 
ney, possibly  also  with  the  extreme  heat,  our  Lord  sat  "thus"  on  the 
well.  The  expression  in  the  original  is  most  pathetically  picturesque.  It 
implies  that  the  Wayfarer  was  quite  tired  out,  and  in  His  exhaustion 
flung  His  limbs  wearily  on  the  seat,  anxious,  if  possible,  for  complete 
repose.  His  disciples — probably  the  two  pairs  of  brothers  whom  He  had 
called  among  the  earliest,  and  with  them  the  friends  Philip  and 
Bartholomew — had  left  Him,  to  buy  in  the  neighboring  city  what  was 
necessary  for  their  wants  ;  and,  hungry  and  thirsty,  He  who  bore  all  our 
infirmities  sat  wearily  awaiting  them,  when  His  solitude  was  broken  by 
the  approach  of  a  woman.  In  a  May  noon  in  Palestine  the  heat  may  be 
indeed  intense,"  but  it  is  not  too  intense  to  admit  of  moving  about ;  and 
this  woman,  either  from  accident,  or,  possibly,  because  she  was  in  no 
good  repute,  and  therefore  would  avoid  the  hour  when  the  well  would  be 
thronged  by  all  the  women  of  the  city,'  was  coming  to  draw  water.  Her 
national  enthusiasm  and  reverence  for  the  great  ancestor  of  her  race,  or 
perhaps  the  superior  coolness  and  freshness  of  the  water,  may  have  been 
sufficient  motive  to  induce  her  to  seek  this  well,  rather  than  any  nearer 
fountain.  Water  in  the  East  is  not  only  a  necessity,  but  a  delicious 
luxury,  and  the  natives  of  Palestine  are  connoisseurs  as  to  its  quality. 

Jesus  would  have  hailed  her  approach.  The  scene,  indeed,  in  that 
rich  green  valley,  with  the  great  cornfields  spreading  far  and  wide,  and 
the  grateful  shadow  of  trees,  and  the  rounded  masses  of  Ebal  and 
Gerizim  rising  on  either  hand,  might  well  have  invited  to  lonely  musing ; 
and  all  the  associations  of  that  sacred  spot — the  story  of  Jacob,  the 
neighboring  tomb  of  the  princely  Joseph,  the  memories  of  Joshua,  and 
of  Gideon,  and  the  long  line  of  Israelitish  kings — would  supply  many  a 
theme  for  such  meditations.      But  the  Lord  was  thirsty  and  fatigued,  and 

1  I  must  here  repeat  that  I  see  no  sufficient  reason  for  supposing  that  St.  John  adopts  a  different  com- 
putation of  hours  from  that  of  the  other  Evangelists.  If  it  had  been  evening,  there  would  have  been  many 
women  at  the  well  instead  of  one  ;  and,  as  Alford  observes,  St.  John,  if  he  had  meant  six  in  the  evening, 
would  have  naturally  specified  whether  he  meant  six  a.m.  or  p.m. 

2  It  is  not  possible  to  determine  at  what  time  of  the  year  this  incident  took  place.  Those  who  take 
John  iv.  35  literally,  suppose  that  it  was  in  December  ;  those  who  take  verse  36  literally,  place  it  in  May. 
Now  one  of  the  two  must  be  metaphorical,  and  how  shall  we  decide  which?  Each  supposition  is  sur- 
rounded with  difficulties  ;  but  as  the  baptizing  period  seems  to  have  been  extremely  short,  and  as  the 
Passover  in  this  year  was  in  April,  there  is  possibly  a  shade  more  likelihood  that  it  took  place  in  May.  If 
so,  *'  Say  ye  not.  There  are  yet  four  months,  and  then  cometh  harvest,"  must  be  understood  as  beinj; 
merely  a  proverbial  expression  of  the  average  interval  between  seed  time  and  harvest  in  some  parts  of 
Palestine  ;  for  which  proverb  there  are  parallels  both  in  Hebrew  and  classic  literature. 

3  Gen.  xxiv.  ji. 


THE    WOMAN    AT    THE    WELL. ^John  iv.  /. 


CHRIST    HEALING   THE    NOBLEMAN'S    SON.— John  iv.   74. 


THE  WOMAN  OF  SAMARIA.  l6l 

having  no  means  of  reaching  ttie  cool  water  which  glimmered  deep  be- 
low the  well's  mouth,   He  said  to  the  woman,  "  Give  me  to  drink." 

Every  one  who  has  traveled  in  the  East  knows  how  glad  and  ready 
is  the  response  to  this  request.  The  miserable  Fellah,  even  the  ignorant 
Bedawy,  seems  to  feel  a  positive  pleasure  in  having  it  in  his  power  to 
obey  the  command  of  his  great  prophet,  and  share  with  a  thirsty  traveler 
the  priceless  element.  But  so  deadly  was  the  hatred  and  rivalry  between 
Jews  and  Samaritans,  so  entire  the  absence  of  all  familiar  intercourse 
between  them,  that  the  request  only  elicited  from  the  woman  of  Samaria 
an  expression  of  surprise  that  it  should  have  been  made.' 

Gently,  and  without  a  word  of  rebuke,  our  Lord  tells  her  that 
had  she  known  the  gift  of  God,-  and  who  it  was  who  asked  her  to  give 
Him  to  drink,  she  would  have  asked  of  Him,  and  He  would  have  given 
her  living  water.^  She  pointed  to  the  well,  a  hundred  feet  deep.  He 
had  nothing  to  draw  with:  whence  could  He  obtain  this  living  water? 
And  then,  perhaps  with  a  smile  of  incredulity  and  national  pride,  she 
asked  if  He  were  greater  than  their  father  Jacob,  who  had  digged  and 
drunk    of   that    very  well.*     And  yet    there    must    have    been  something 

1  John  iv.  9 ;  see  Ezra  iv.  I.  Even  our  Lord  speaks  of  a  Samaritan  as  "  an  alien  "  (Luke  xvi;. 
i8).  The  Jews  called  them  Cuthites  ;  coupled  the  name  of  "Samaritan"  with  "devil;"  accused  them 
of  worshipping  the  earrings  and  idolatrous  amulets  buried  by  Jacob  under  the  Allon  Meonenim  or  "  En- 
chanter's Oak"  (Gen.  xxxv.  4);  cursed  them  in  their  synagogues;  did  not  suffer  them  to  become 
proselytes  ;  said  that  to  eat  their  bread  was  like  eating  swine's  flesh  ;  and  denied  them  all  share  in  the 
resurrection.  The  Samaritans,  on  their  part,  were  accused  of  waylaying  Jews  ;  of  misleading  them  by 
false  fire-signals;  and  of  having  scattered  bones  in  the  Temple.  "Are  you  a  Jew?"  asked  Salameh 
Cohen,  the  Samaritan  high-priest,  of  Dr.  FrankI ;  "  and  do  you  come  to  us,  the  Samaritans,  who  are  de- 
spised by  the  Jews?"  He  added  that  they  would  willingly  live  in  friendship  with  the  Jews,  but  that  the 
Jews  avoided  all  intercourse  with  them.  Soon  after,  visiting  the  Sepharedish  Jews  of  Nablous,  Dr. 
FrankI  asked  one  of  that  sect,  "  if  he  had  any  intercourse  with  the  Samaritans.  The  women  retreated 
with  a  cry  of  horror,  and  one  of  thetn  said,  '  Have  you  been  among  the  worshippers  of  the  pipeon  ?'  I 
said  that  I  had.  The  women  again  fell  back  with  the  same  expression  of  repugnance,  and  one  or  them 
said,  '  Take  a  purifying  bath!'" 

2  "The  gift  of  God  "  probably  means  in  the  Jirsf  instance  the  free,  universal  gift  of  water. 

3  Not  far  from  Jacob's  well — which  is  one  of  the  very  few  precise  spots  in  Palestine  ac'uallv  and 
closely  identified  by  probability,  as  well  as  by  unanimous  tradition,  with  our  Saviour's  presence — there 
gushes  a  sweet  and  abundant  stream.  The  fact  that  even  the  close  vicinity  of  the  fountain  sT>ould  not  have 
been  enough  to  render  needless  the  toil  of  Jacob  in  digging  the  well — which  is  of  immense  depth — forcibly 
illustrates  the  jealousy  and  suspicion  that  marked  his  relations  to  the  neighboring  Canaanites.  The  well 
is  now  dry,  and  in  fact  all  that  can  be  seen  of  it  is  a  pit  some  twenty  feet  deep  ;  the  true  well,  or  at  any 
rate  the  mouth  of  it,  having  been  filled  up  with  masses  of  rubble  and  masonry  from  t!ie  nasilica  once 
built  over  it.  Captain  Anderson  descended  it  to  a  depth  of  seventy-five  feet,  and  it  may  liave  been  twice 
that  depth  originally. 

4  Josephus  says  that  the  Samaritans  were  fond  of  appealing  to  their  descent  from  Jacob  when  the 
Jews  were  in  prosperity,  but  denied  all  relationship  when  the  Jews  were  in  adversity.  The  son  of  Sirach 
calls  them  "  the  fooiish  people  that  dwelleth  in  Shechem."  "  There  be  two  manner  of  nations  which  my 
heart  abhorreth,  and  the  third  is  no  nation  :  they  that  sii  upon  the  mountain  of  Samaria,  and  they  that 
dwell  among  the  Philistines,  and  that  foolish  people  that  dwell  ia  Sichem  "  (2cclus.  1.  25,  26). 

IX 


l62  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

which  struck  and  overawed  her  in  His  words,  for  now  she  addresses 
Him  by  the  title  of  respect  which  had  been  wanting  in  her  first 
address. 

Our  Lord  is  not  deterred  by  the  hard  literalism  of  her  reply  ;  He 
treats  it  as  He  had  treated  similar  unimaginative  dullness  in  the  learned 
Nicodemus,  by  still  drawing  her  thoughts  upward,  if  possible,  to  a  higher 
region.  She  was  thinking  of  common  water,  of  which  he  who  drinketh 
would  thirst  again  ;  but  the  water  He  spake  of  was  a  fountain  within 
the  heart,  which  quenched  all  thirst  for  ever,  and  sprang  up  unto  eternal 
life.' 

6"/^^  becomes  the  suppliant  now.  He  had  asked  her  a  little  favor,  which 
she  had  delayed,  or  half  declined;  He  now  offers  her  an  eternal  gift. 
She  sees  that  she  is  in  some  great  Presence,  and  begs  for  this  living 
water,  but  again  with  the  same  unspiritual  narrowness^she  only  begs  for 
it  that  she  might  thirst  no  more,  nor  come  there  to  draw. 

But  enough  was  done  for  the  present  to  awake  and  to  instruct  this 
poor  stranger,  and  abruptly  breaking  off  this  portion  of  the  conversation, 
Jesus  bids  her  call  her  husband,  and  return.  All  that  was  in  His  mind 
when  He  uttered  this  command  we  cannot  tell  ;  it  may  have  been  because 
the  immemorial  decorum  of  the  East  regarded  it  as  unbecoming,  if  not 
as  positively  wrong,  for  any  man,  and  above  all  for  a  Rabbi,  to  hold 
conversation  with  a  strange  Avoman  ;  it  may  have  been  also  to  break  a  stony 
heart,  to  awake  a  sleeping  conscience.  For  she  was  forced  to  answer  that 
she  had  no  husband,  and  our  Lord,  in  grave  confirmation  of  her  sad  con- 
fession, unbared  to  her  the  secret  of  a  loose  and  wanton  life.  She  had 
had  five  husbands,  and  he  whom  she  now  had  was  not  her  husband.' 

She  saw  that  a  Prophet  was  before  her,  but  from  the  facts  of  her 
own  history — on  which  she  is  naturally  anxious  to  linger  as  little  as  pos- 
sible— her  eager  mind  flies  to  the  one  great  question  that  was  daily  agi- 
tated with  such  fierce  passion  between  her  race  and  that  of  Him  to  whom 
she  spake,  and  that  lay  at  the  root  of  the  savage  animosity  with  which 
they  treated  each  other.  Chance  had  thrown  her  into  the  society  of  a 
great  Teacher  :  was  it  not  a  good  opportunity  to  settle  for  ever  the  im- 
mense discussion  between  Jews  and    Samaritans  as  to  whether  Jerusalem 

1  Cf.  Isa.  xii.  3. 

2  Keim,  and  many  others,  think  it  indisputable  that  this  is  an  allegorical  reference  to  the  five  religions 
brought  by  the  Asiatic  settlers  into  Samaria,  and  the  hybrid  Jehovisra  into  which  they  were  merged  ! 
Strange  that  an  allusion  so  superfluously  dim  should  have  been  made  at  all  !  If  the  Gospels  were  only  in- 
telligible to  those  who  could  guess  the  solution  of  such  enigmas,  the  study  of  them  might  well  be  dis- 
credited altogether. 


THE  WOMAN  OF  SAMARIA  I63 

or  Gerizim  was  the  holy  place  of  Palestine — Jerusalem,  where  Solomon 
had  built  his  temple ;  or  Gerizim,  the  immemorial  sanctuary,  where  Joshua 
had  uttered  the  blessings,  and  where  Abraham  had  been  ready  to  offer 
up  his  son?'  Pointing  to  the  summit  of  the  mountain  towering  eight 
hundred  feet  above  them,  and  crowned  by  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  temple 
of  Manasseh,  which  Hyrcanus  had  destroyed,  she  put  her  dubious  ques- 
tion, "  Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this  mountain,  and  ye  say  that  Jeru- 
salem is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship  ? " " 

Briefly,  and  merely  by  way  of  parenthesis.  He  resolved  her  im- 
mediate problem.  As  against  the  Samaritans,  the  Jews  were  unquestion- 
ably right.  Jerusalem  was  the  place  which  God  had  chosen  ;  compared 
to  the  hybrid  and  defective  worship  of  Samaria,  Judaism  was  pure  and 
true;'  but  before  and  after  touching  on  the  earthly  and  temporal  contro- 
versy. He  uttered  to  her  the  mighty  and  memorable  prophecy,  that  the 
hour  was  coming,  yea  now  was,  when  "  neither  in  this  mountain  nor  yet 
in  Jerusalem"  should  true  worshippers  worship  the  Father,  but  in  every 
place  should  worship   Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

She  was  deeply  moved  and  touched  ;  but  how  could  she,  at  the  mere 
chance  word  of  an  unknown  stranger,  give  up  the  strong  faith  in  which 
she  and  her  fathers  had  been  born  and  bred  ?  With  a  sigh  she  referred 
the  final  settlement  of  this  and  of  every  question  to  the  advent  of  the 
Messiah  ;■•  and  then  He  spake  the  simple,  awful  words — "  I  that  speak 
unto  thee  am  He." 

His  birth  had  been  first  revealed  by  night  to  a  few  unknown  and 
ignorant  shepherds;  the  first  full,  clear  announcement  by  Himself  of  His 
own  Messiahship  was  made  by  a  well-side  in  the  weary  noon  to  a  single 
obscure  Samaritan  woman.  And  to  this  poor,  sinful,  ignorant  stranger 
had    been    uttered    words    of    immortal    significance,    to    which    all    future 

1  Deut.  xxvii.  4  (where  they  read  Gerizim).     Cf.  Gen.  xii.  7  ;  xxxiii.  18  ;  Deut.  xii.  5  ;  xi.  29. 

2  Gen.  xii.  6  ;  xxxiii.  rS,  20.  Some  have  seen  in  the  woman's  question  a  mere  desire  to  "  turn  the 
conversation,"  and  to  avoid  the  personal  and  searching  topics  to  which  it  seemed  likely  to  lead.  Although 
there  is  no  sign  that  her  conscience  was  sufficiently  moved  to  make  this  likely,  we  may  doubtless  see  iik 
what  she  says  the  common  phenomenon  of  an  intense  interest  in  speculative  and  party  questions  combined 
with  an  utter  apathy  respecting  moral  obedience. 

3  John  iv.  22,  "  We  worship  what  we  know  ;  for  salvation  is  of  the  Jews."  It  has  been  pointed  out 
that  such  a  sentence  could  not  conceivably  have  been  written  by  the  Asiatic  Gnostic  to  whom  the  school 
of  Baur  attribute  the  Fourth  Gospel.  *'  The  •  we '  is  remarkable  as  being  the  only  instance  of  our  Lord  thus 
speaking.  .  .  .  The  nearest  approach  to  it  is  Matt.  xv.  24,  26."  Josephus  preserves  the  striking 
fact  that,  down  to  the  time  of  Alexander,  the  Temple  on  Gerizim  had  no  name.  The  Samaritans  actually 
proposed  to  Antiochus  Epiphanes  that  it  should  be  dedicated  to  Jupiter  Hellenius. 

4  The  Messianic  hopes  of  the  Samaritans  were  founded,  not  on  the  Prophets  (whom  they  rejected), 
but  on  such  passages  as  Gen.  xlix.  10;  Numb.  xxiv.  17;  Deut.   xviii.  15. 


f64  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY, 

ages  would  listen,  as  it  were,  with  hushed  breath  and  on  their  knees. 
Who  would  have  invented,  who  would  have  merely  imagined,  things 
so  unlike  the  thoughts  of  man  as  these  ? 

And  here  the  conversation  was  interrupted ;  for  the  disciples — and 
among  them  he  who  writes  the  record — returned  to  their  Master. 
Jacob's  well  is  dug  on  elevated  ground,  on  a  spur  of  Gerizim,  and  in  a 
part  of  the  plain  unobstructed  and  unshaded  by  trees  or  buildings.  From 
a  distance  in  that  clear  air  they  had  seen  and  had  heard  their  Master  in 
long  and  earnest  conversation  with  a  solitary  figure.  He  a  Jew,  He  a 
Rabbi,  talking  to  "  a  woman,"  and  that  woman  a  Samaritan,  and  that 
Samaritan  a  sinner!'  Yet  they  dared  not  suggest  anything  to  Him; 
they  dared  not  question  Him.  The  sense  of  His  majesty,  the  love  and 
the  faith  His  very  presence  breathed,  overshadowed  all  minor  doubts  or 
wondering  curiosities. 

Meanwhile  the  woman,  forgetting  even  her  water-pot  in  her  impetuous 
amazement,  had  hurried  to  the  city  with  her  wondrous  story.  Here  was 
One  who  had  revealed  to  her  the  very  secrets  of  her  life.  Was  not  this 
the  Messiah  ? 

The  Samaritans — in  all  the  Gospel  notices  of  whom  we  detect  some- 
thing simpler  and  more  open  to  conviction  than  in  the  Jews — instantly 
flocked  out  of  the  city  at  her  words,  and  while  they  were  seen  approach- 
ing, the  disciples  urged  our  Lord  to  eat,  for  the  hour  of  noon  was  now  past, 
and  He  had  had  a  weary  walk.  But  all  hunger  had  been  satisfied  in  the  ex- 
altation of  His  ministry.  "/  have  food  to  eat,"  He  said,  "which  ye  know 
not."  Might  they  not  have  understood  that,  from  childhood  upwards,  He  had 
not  lived  by  bread  alone  ?  But  again  we  find  the  same  dull,  hard,  stolid 
literalism.  Their  Scriptures,  the  very  idioms  in  which  they  spoke,  were 
full  of  vivid  metaphors,  yet  they  could  hit  on  no  deeper  explanation  of 
His  meaning  than  that  perhaps  some  one  had  brought  Him  something  to 
eat.'  How  hard  must  it  have  been  for  Him  thus,  at  every  turn,  to  find 
even  in  His  chosen  ones  such  a  strange  incapacity  to  see  that  material 
images  were  but  the  vehicles  for  deep  spiritual    thoughts.     But  there  was 

1  John  iv.  27,  "that  He  was  talking  with  a  [not  the\  woman."  To  talk  with  a  woman  in  public  was 
one  of  the  six  things  which  a  Rabbi  might  not  do  ;  even,  adds  R.  Hisda,  with  his  own  wife.  Here  we 
have  a  curious  accidental  analogy  between  Pharisaism  and  Buddhism.  In  the  Vinaya  a  Bhikshu  is  not 
only  forbidden  to  look  at  or  speak  'to  a  woman,  but  he  may  not  hold  out  his  hand  to  his  own  mother 
If  she  be  drowning  ! 

2  For  similar  literal  misconstructions  see  John  ii.  20;  iii.  4;  iv.  11;  vi.  42— 52  ;  Matt.  xvi.  6;  Mark 
viii.  15.  We  shall  meet  with  the  metaphor  again,  and  even  the  Rabbis  said,  "  The  just  eat  of  the  glory  of 
«he  Shechlnah,"  and  that  Moses  in  Horeb  vi&s  ftJ  by  the  music  of  the  spheres. 


THE  WOMAN  OF  SAMARIA.  165 

no  impatience  in  Him  who  was  meek  and  lowly  of  heart.  "My  meat," 
He  said,  "is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me,  and  to  finish  His 
work."  And  then  pointing  to  the  inhabitants  of  Sichem,  as  they  streamed 
to  Him  over  the  plain.  He  continued,  "  You  talk  of  there  being  yet  four 
months  to  harvest.  Look  at  these  fields,  white  already  for  the  spiritual 
harvest.  Ye  shall  be  the  joyful  reapers  of  the  harvest  which  I  thus  have 
sown  in  toil  and  pain  ;  but  I,  the  sower,  rejoice  in  the  thought  of  that  joy 
to  come."' 

The  personal  intercourse  with  Christ  convinced  many  of  these  Samar- 
itans far  more  deeply  than  the  narrative  of  the  woman  to  whom  He  had 
first  revealed  Himself;  and  graciously  acceding  to- their  request  that  He 
would  stay  with  them.  He  and  His  disciples  abode  there  two  days. 
Doubtless  it  was  the  teaching  of  those  two  days  that  had  a  vast  share  in 
the  rich  conversions  of  a  few  subsequent  years.  = 

.. .    '  l°^\  ''''''•  '3-  We  have  already  seen  that  no  certain  note  of  time  can  be  drawn  from  this  allusion  •  He 
jn^whom  IS  no  before  or  after"  might  also  have  seen  by  imagination  the  whitening  harvest  in  the  springing 

3  Acts  viil.  5. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 


REJECTED     BY     THE     N  A  Z  A  R  E  N  E  S. 


His  own  received  rtim  not." — John  i,  ii. 

P  to  this  point  of  tlie  sacred  narrative  we  have  fol- 
lowed the  chronological  guidance  of  St.  John, 
and  here,  for  the  first  time,  we  are  seriously  met 
by  the  difficult  question  as  to  the  true  order  of 
events  in  our  Lord's  ministry. 

Is  it  or  is  it  not  possible  to  construct  a 
harmony  of  the  Gospels  which  shall  remove  all 
the  difficulties  created  by  the  differing  order  in 
which  the  Evangelists  narrate  the  same  events, 
and  by  the  confessedly  fragmentary  character  of 
their  records,  and  by  the  general  vagueness  of 
the  notes  of  time  which  they  give,  even  when 
such  notes  are  not  wholly  absent  ? 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  sufficient  answer  to  this 
question  that  scarcely  any  two  authorities  agree  in  the  schemes  which 
have  been  elaborated  for  the  purpose.  A  host  of  writers,  in  all  Chris- 
tian nations,  have  devoted  years — some  of  them  have  devoted  well-nigh 
their  whole  lives — to  the  consideration  of  this  and  of  similar  questions, 
and  have  yet  failed  to  come  to  any  agreement  or  to  command  any  gen- 
eral consent. 

To  enter  into  all  the  arguments,  on  both  sides,  about  the  numerous 
disputed  points  •which  must  be  settled  before  the  problem  can  be  solved, 
would  be  to  undertake  a  task  which  would  fill  many  volumes,  would 
produce  no  final  settlement  of  the  difficulty,  and  would  be  wholly  beyond 
the  purpose  before  us.  What  I  have  done  is  carefully  to  consider  the 
chief  data,  and  without  entering  into  controversy  or  pretending  to  remove 
all  possible  objections,  to  narrate  the  events  in  that  order  which,  after 
repeated  study,  seems  to  be  the  most  intrinsically  probable,  with  due 
reference  to  all    definite    indications  of    time    which    the  Gospels  contain. 


REJECTED  BY  THE  NAZARENES.  1 67 

An  indisputable  or  convincing  harmony  of  the  Gospels  appear  to  me  to 
be  impossible,  and  as  a  necessary  consequence  it  can  be  of  no  absolute 
importance.  Had  it  been  essential  to  our  comprehension  of  the  Saviour's 
life  that  we  should  know  more  exactly  the  times  and  places  where  the 
years  of  His  public  ministry  were  spent,  the  Christian  at  least  will  believe 
that  such  knowledge  would  not  have  been  withheld  from  us. 

The  inspiration  which  guided  the  Evangelists  in  narrating  the  life  of 
Christ  was  one  which  enabled  them  to  tell  all  that  was  necessary  for  the 
peace  and  well-being  of  our  souls,  but  very  far  from  all  which  we  might 
have  yearned  to  know  for  the  gratification  of  our  curiosity,  or  even  the 
satisfaction  of  our  historic  interest.  Nor  is  it  difificult  to  see  herein  a 
fresh  indication  that  our  thoughts  must  be  fixed  on  the  spiritual  more 
than  on  the  material — on  Christ  who  liveth  for  evermore,  and  is  with  us 
always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world,  far  more  than  on  the  external  inci- 
dents of  that  human  life  which,  in  the  counsel  of  God's  will,  was  the 
appointed  means  of  man's  redemption.  We  shall  never  know  all  that  we 
could  wish  to  know  about 

"The  sinless  years 
That  breathed  beneath  the  Syrian  blue,"  ' 

but  we  shall  still  be  the  children  of  God  and  the  disciples  of  His  Christ  if 
we  keep   His  sayings  and  do  the  things  which  He  commanded. 

St.  John  tells  us  that  after  two  days'  abode. among  the  open-minded 
Samaritans  of  Sychar,  Jesus  went  into  Galilee,  "for  He  Himself  testified 
that  a  prophet  hath  no  honor  in  his  own  country,"  and  yet  he  continues, 
that  "When  He  was  come  into  Galilee,  the  Gilileans  received  Him,  hav- 
ing seen  all  the  things  that  He  did  at  Jerusalem  at  the  feast;"  and 
he  adds,  immediately  after,  that  Jesus  came  again  into  Cana  of  Galilee, 
and  there  healed  the  nobleman's  son.  The  perplexing  "  for "  seems  to 
point  to  one  of  those  suppressed  trains  of  thought  so  frequent  in  St. 
John.  I  understand  it  to  mean  that  at  Nazareth,  in  His  own  home, 
rejection  awaited  Him  in  spite  of  the  first  gleam  of  transient  acceptance; 
and  that  for  this  rejection  He  was  not  unprepared,  for  it  was  one 
of  His  distinct  statements  that  "in  his  own  country  a  prophet  is  dis- 
honored." ' 

It  was  not  the  object  of  St.  John  to  dwell  on  the  ministry  in  Galilee, 
which  had  been  already  narrated  by  the  Synoptists ;  accordingly  it  is  from 

I  John  iv.  43 — 45.  That  Christ  did  not  t7uice  preach  at  Nazareth  under  circumstances  so  closely  anal- 
ogous,  I  regard  as  certain,  and  that  is  my  reason  for  considering  that  Matt.  xiii.  53 — 58  ;  Mark  iv.  I — 6, 
refer  to  this  same  event,  narrated  out  of  its  proper  order. 


l68  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

St.  Luke  we  receive  the  fullest  account  of  our  Lord's  first  public  act  in 
His  native  town.' 

It  appears  that  Jesus  did  not  go  direct  from  Sychar  to  Nazareth. 
On  His  way  (unless  we  take  Luke  iv.  15  for  a  general  and  unchronological 
reference)  He  taught  continuously,  and  with  general  admiration  and  ac- 
ceptance, in  the  synagogues  of  Galilee.  In  this  way  He  arrived  at 
Nazareth,  and  according  to  His  usual  custom,  for  He  had  doubtless  been 
a  silent  worshipper  in  that  humble  place  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  from 
boyhood  upwards,   He  entered  into  the   synagogue    on    the  Sabbath  day. 

There  was  but  one  synagogue  in  the  little  town,'  and  probably  it 
resembled  in  all  respects,  except  in  its  humbler  aspect  and  materials,  the 
synagogues  of  which  we  see  the  ruins  at  Tell  Ham  and  Irbid.  It  was 
simply  a  rectangular  hall,  with  a  pillared  portico  of  Grecian  architecture, 
of  which  the  further  extremity  (where  the  "  sanctuary  "  was  placed)  usually 
pointed  towards  Jerusalem,  which,  since  the  time  of  Solomon,  had  always 
been  the  kiblch — i.e.,  the  consecrated  direction — of  a  Jew's  worship,  as 
Mecca  is  of  a  Mohammedan's.  In  wealthier  places  it  was  built  of  white 
marble,  and  sculptured  on  the  outside  in  alto-relievo,  with  rude  ornaments 
of  vine-leaves  and  grapes,  or  the  budding  rod  and  the  pot  of  Manna.* 
On  entering  there  were  seats  on  one  side  for  the  men  ;  on  the  other, 
behind  a  lattice,  were  seated  the  women,  shrouded  in  their  long  veils.  At 
one  end  was  the  tebliah  or  ark  of  painted  wood,  which  contained  the 
sacred  scriptures ;  and  at  one  side  was  the  btma,  or  elevated  seat  for  the 
reader  or  preacher.  Clergy,  properly  speaking,  there  were  none,  but  in 
the  chief  seats  were  the  ten  or  more  batlantm,  "  men  of  leisure,"  or  leading 
elders;*  and  pre-eminent  among  these  the  chief  of  the  synagogue,'  or  rdsk 
hak-kendseth.  Inferior  in  rank  to  these  were  the  chazzdn,^  or  clerk,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  keep  the  sacred  books;  the  sheliach,  corresponding  to  our 
sacristan  or  verger ;  and  the  parnastm,  or  shepherds,  who  in  some  respects 
acted  as  deacons. 

The  service    of   the    synagogue  was    not  unlike  our  own.     After  the 

1  Luke  iv.  14 — 39.  There  may  possibly  (but  not  certainly)  be  some  unchronological  reminiscences  of 
this  visit  to  Nazareth  in  Matt.  xiii.  54 — 58  ;   Mark  vi.  2 — 6. 

2  Luke  iv.  16. 

3  These  emblems  were  found  on  the  broken  slab  of  the  architrave  which  once  stood  over  the  door  of 
the  synagogue  at  Capernaum  (Tell  Hum).  They  have  no  pretense  to  architectural  beauty.  The  orientation 
does  not  now  seem  to  be  very  carefully  attended  to,  for  Mr.  Monro  tells  me  that  in  Algiers  the  reader's 
pulpit  in  the  synagogues  may  look  north,  east,  or  south — only  not  west. 

4  Luke  vii.  3.  Their  "  chief  seats  "  (Mark  xii.  39,  &c.)  were  placed  in  front  of  the  ark  and  facing  the 
congregation. 

5  Mark  v.  22,  &c.  6  Luke  iv.  20. 


REJECTED  BY  THE  NAZARENES.  1 69 

prayers  two  lessons  were  always  read,  one  from  the  Law  z?i}i\.^^  paras Imh, 
and  one  from  the  Prophets  called  haphtarah ;  and  as  there  were  no 
ordained  ministers  to  conduct  the  services — for  the  office  of  priests  and 
Levites  at  Jerusalem  was  wholly  different — these  lessons  might  not  only 
be  read  by  any  competent  person  who  received  permission  from  the  rosk 
hak-kendseth,  but  he  was  even  at  liberty  to  add  his  own  midrash,  or 
comment. 

The  reading  of  the  parashah,  or  lesson  from  the  Pentateuch,  was 
apparently  over  when  Jesus  ascended  the  steps  of  the  binia.  Recognizing 
His  claim  to  perform  the  honorable  function  of  a  maplitir  or  reader,  the 
chazzdn  drew  aside  the  silk  curtain  of  the  painted  ark  which  contained  the 
sacred  manuscripts,  and  handed  Him  the  mcgillah  or  roll  of  the  Prophet 
Isaiah,  which  contained  the  haphtarah  of  the  day.'  Our  Lord  unrolled 
the  volume,  and  found  the  well-known  passage  in  Isaiah  Ixi.  The  whole 
congregation  stood  up  to  listen  to  him.  The  length  of  the  haphtarah 
might  be  from  three  to  twenty-one  verses,  but  Jesus  only  read  the 
first  and  part  of  the  second ; '  stopping  short,  in  a  spirit  of  tender- 
ness, before  the  stern  expression,  "  The  day  of  vengeance  of  our 
God,"  so  that  the  gracious  words,  "The  acceptable  year^  of  the  Lord," 
might  rest  last  upon  their  ears  and  form  the  text  of  His  discourse.  He 
then  rolled  up  the  7negillah,  handed  it  back  to  the  chazzdn,  and,  as  was 
customary  among  the  Jews,  sat  down  to  deliver    His  sermon.* 

The  passage  which  He  had  read,  whether  part  of  the  ordinary  lesson 
for  the   day  or  chosen  by    Himself,  was  a    very    remarkable    one,    and    it 

1  It  appears  that  the  Prophecy  of  Isaiah  was  generally  written  on  a  separate  migillah.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  find  the  place,  because  the  scroll  of  the  Prophets  had  only  one  roller  ;  the  Law  had  two  ;  and 
"  every  hebdomadal  lesson  is  unrolled  from  the  right  roller,  and  rolled  on  the  left.  Hence,  when  the  scroll 
of  the  Law  is  opened  on  the  next  Sabbath,  the  portion  appointed  for  the  day  is  at  once  found."  ("  Haph- 
tarah," Kitlo's  Cyclop,  ii.  224.) 

2  Probably  it  would  be  read  in  Hebrew,  but  translated  by  the  "  interpreter  "  either  into  Aramaic, 
which  was  then  the  vernacular  of  Palestine  ;  or  into  Greek,  which  at  that  time  seems  to  have  been  gener- 
ally understood  and  spoken  throughout  the  country.  The  passage,  as  given  in  St.  Luke,  agrees  mainly 
with  the  LXX.  or  Greek  version  ;  but  (as  is  almost  invariably  the  case  in  the  New  Testament  quotations 
from  the  Old  Testament)  with  some  remarkable  differences.  The  deviations  from  the  Hebrew  original  are 
at  first  sight  considerable,  though  the  main  conception  is  the  same.  1 

3  This  expression  led  to  the  mistaken  tradition  of  some  Fathers  that  our  Lord's  ministry  lasted  but  for 
a  single  year.  Some  refer  it  to  that  portion  known  as  "  the  Galilean  year."  In  all  probability  the  expres- 
sion "  year"  is  merely  general.  Mr.  Browne,  in  his  Ordo  Saeclorum,  argues  powerfully  for  the  limitation 
of  our  Lord's  ministry  to  a  year  ;  but  the  three  passovers  distinctly  mentioned  by  St.  John  (without  a  single 
important  variation  in  any  MS.,  or  version,  or  quotation  by  the  Fathers)  in  vi.  4  seem  conclusive  on  the 
other  side  (John  ii.  13  ;  vi.  4  ;  xi.  55)  ;  and  this  was  the  view  of  Melito,  St.  Hippolytus,  St.  Jerome,  &c. 

4  This  was  our  Lord's  usual  attitude  when  teaching  (Matt.  v.  i  ;  Mark  xiii.  3,  <S:c.).  Probably  the 
audience,  as  well  as  the  reader,  stood  at  any  rate  during  the  reading  of  the  Law  (Neh.  viii.  5).  The  sermon 
was  called  derash. 


I70  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

must  have  derived  additional  grandeur  and  solemnity  from  the  lips  of 
Him  in  whom  it  was  fulfilled.  Every  eye  in  the  synagogue  was  fixed 
upon  Him  with  a  gaze  of  intense  earnestness,'  and  we  may  imagine  the 
thrill  of  awful  expectation  and  excitement  which  passed  through  the 
hearts  of  the  listeners,  as,  in  a  discourse  ot  which  the  subject  only  is 
preserved  for  us  by  the  Evangelist,  He  developed  the  theme  that  He 
was  Himself  the  Messiah,  of  who  the  great  Prophet  had  sung  700  years 
before.'  His  words  were  full  of  a  grace,  an  authority,  a  power  which 
was  at  first  irresistible  and  which  commanded  the  involuntary  astonish- 
ment of  all.  But  as  He  proceeded  He  became  conscious  of  a  change. 
The  spell  of  His  wisdom  and  sweetness'  was  broken,  as  these  rude  and 
violent  Nazarenes  began  to  realize  the  full  meaning  of  His  divine  claims. 
It  was  customary  with  the  Jews  in  the  worship  of  their  synagogue  to 
give  full  vent  to  their  feelings,  and  it  was  not  long  before  Jesus  became 
sensible  of  indignant  and  rebellious  murmurs.  He  saw  that  those  eager 
glittering  eyes,  which  had  been  fixed  upon  Him  in  the  first  excitement 
of  attention,  were  beginning  to  glow  with  the  malignant  light  of  jealousy 
and  hatred.  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter?  is  He  not  the  brother  of  work- 
man like  himself — James  and  Joses  and  Simon  and  Judas — and  of  sisters 
who  live  among  us?  do  not  even  his  own  family  disbelieve  in  him."* 
Such  were  the  whispers  which  began  to  be  buzzed  about  among  the 
audience.  This  was  no  young  and  learned  Rabbi '  from  the  schools  of 
Gamaliel  or  Shammai,  and  yet  he  spoke  with  an  authority  which  not  even 
the  great  scribes  assumed  !  Even  a  Hillel,  when  his  doctrines  failed  to 
persuade,  could  only  secure  conviction  by  appealing  to  the  previous 
authority  of  a  Shemaia  or  an  Abtalion.  But  this  teacher  appealed  to  no 
one — this  teacher  who  had  but  been  their  village  carpenter  !  What  busi- 
ness had  lie  to  teach  ?  Whence  could  he  know  letters,  having  never 
learned?' 

Jesus  did  not  leave  unobserved  the  change  which  was  passing  over  the 
feelings  of  His  audience.'     He  at  once  told  them  that  He  was  the  Jesus 

1  Luke  iv.  20. 

2  Luke  i'-.  iS. 

3  Cf.  Ps.  xlv.  2. 

4  Matt.  xiii.  57,  "and  in  his  own  house."     Cf.  John  vii.  5  ;  Mark  iii.  21  ;  Matt.  xiii.  56. 

5  The  title,  together  with  that  of  "teacher,"  was,  however,  freely  allowed  to  Christ,  even  by  His 
enemies  (Matt.  viii.  19;  xii.  38;  xxii.  i6  ;  xxiii.  7,  &c.). 

6  Cf.  John  vii.  15,  &c. 

7  "The  village  beggarly  pride  of  the  Nazarenes  cannot  at  all  comprehend  the  humility  of  the  Great 
One"(Stier).  Th;;ir  ramark  savors  of  the  notions  of  Shammai,  who  (in  opposition  to  Hillel)  held  that 
no  one  ought  even  to  be  admitted  into  a  school  unless  he  was  of  good  family  and  rich. 


REJECTED  BY  THE  NAZARENES.  171 

whom  they  described,  and  yet  with  no  abatement  of  His  Messianic 
grandeur.  Their  hardness  and  unbeHef  had  already  depressed  His  spirit 
before  He  had  even  entered  the  synagogue.  The  impHed  slur  on  the 
humility  of  His  previous  life  He  passes  by  ;  it  was  too  essentially  pro- 
vincial and  innately  vulgar  to  need  correction,  since  any  Nazarene  of  suf- 
ficient honesty  might  have  reminded  himself  of  the  yet  humbler  origin  of 
the  great  herdsman  Amos.  Nor  would  He  notice  the  base  hatred  which 
weak  and  bad  men  always  contract  for  those  who  shame  them  by  the 
silent  superiority  of  noble  lives.  But  He  was  aware  of  another  feeling  in 
their  minds ;  a  demand  upon  Him  for  some  stupendous  vindication  of 
His  claims;  a  jealousy  that  He  should  have  performed  miracles  at  Cana, 
and  given  an  impression  of  His  power  at  Capernaum,'  to  say  nothing  of 
what  He  had  done  and  taught  at  Jerusalem — and  yet  that  He  should 
have  vouchsafed  no  special  mark  of  His  favor  among  them.  He  knew 
that  the  taunting  and  skeptical  proverb,  "  Physician,  heal  thyself,"  was  in 
their  hearts,  and  all  but  on  their  lips.'  But  to  show  them  most  clearly 
that  He  was  something  more  than  they — that  He  was  no  mere  Nazarene 
like  any  other  who  might  have  lived  among  them  for  thirty  years,  and 
that  He  belonged  not  to  them  but  to  the  world  ^ — He  reminds  them 
that  miracles  are  not  to  be  limited  by  geographical  relationships — that 
Elijah  had  only  saved  the  Phenician  widow  of  Sajepta,  and  Elisha  only 
healed  the  hostile  leper  of  Syria. 

Whai  then?  were  they  in  His  estimation  (and  He  but  "the  carpen- 
ter ! ")  no  better  than  Gentiles  and  lepers  ?  This  was  the  climax  of  all 
that  was  intolerable  to  them,  as  coming  from  a  fellow-townsman  whom 
they  wished  to  rank  among  themselves  ;  and  at  these  words  their  long- 
suppressed  fury  burst  into  a  flame.  The  speaker  was  no  longer  inter- 
rupted by  a  murmur  of  disapprobation,  but  by  a  roar  of  wrath.  With 
one  of  those  bursts  of  sanguinary  excitement  which  characterized  that 
strange,  violent,  impassioned  people — a  people  whose  minds  are  swept  by 
storms  as  sudden  as  those  which  in  one  moment  lash  into  fury  the  mir- 
ror surface  of    their   lake — they  rose    in  a   body,"  tore    Him    out    of    the 

1  These  are  unrecorded  if  our  order  is  right ;  fcut  remarkable  instances  of  teaching  and  of  powers 
quite  sufficient  to  establish  a  strong  expectation — especially  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  miracle  at 
Cana — may  have  occurred  in  the  short  interval  mentioned  in  John  ii.  12.  Even  at  Nazareth  it  seems  that 
some  slight  acts  of  healing,  hardly  regarded  as  miracles,  had  been  performed  (Mark  vi.  5  ;  Matt.  xiii.  58). 
More  than  this  He  neither  could  nor  would  perform  amid  a  faithless  and  hostile  population. 

2  The  proverb  finds  its  analogy  in  all  nations.     It  was  afterwards  addressed  to  Christ  upon  the  cross. 
•>.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  His  recent  favorable  reception  at  Sychar  would  tend  to  prejudice  the 

Nazarenes  against  Him. 

4  Luke  iv.  28,  "  They  were  all  instantly  filled  with  passion."     Cf.  Acts  xxii.  22  ;    xxviii.  25. 


172  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

city,  and  then  dragged  Him  to  the  brow  of  the  hill  above.  The  little 
town  of  Nazareth  nestles  in  the  southern  hollows  of  that  hill  ;  many  a 
mass  of  precipitous  rock  lies  imbedded  on  its  slopes,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  hill-side  may  have  been  far  more  steep  and  precipitous  two 
thousand  years  ago.'  To  one  of  these  rocky  escarpments  they  dragged 
Him,  in  order  to  fling  Him  headlong  down. 

But  His  hour  was  not  yet  come,  and  they  were  saved  from  the 
consummation  of  a  crime  which  would  have  branded  them  with  ever- 
lasting infamy.  "  He  passed  through  the  midst  of  them  and  went  on 
His  way."  There  is  no  need  to  suppose  an  actual  miracle  ;  still  less 
to  imagine  a  secret  and  sudden  escape  into  the  narrow  and  tortuous 
lanes  of  the  town.  Perhaps  His  silence,  perhaps  the  calm  nobleness  of 
His  bearing,  perhaps  the  dauntless  innocence  of  His  gaze  overawed  them. 
Apart  from  anything  supernatural,  there  seems  to  have  been  in  the 
presence  of  Jesus  a  spell  of  mystery  and  of  majesty  which  even  His 
most  ruthless  and  hardened  enemies  acknowledged,  and  before  which 
they  involuntarily  bowed.  It  was  to  this  that  He  owed  His  escape 
when  the  maddened  Jews  in  the  Temple  took  up  stones  to  stone  Him; 
it  was  this  that  made  the  bold  and  bigoted  officers  of  the  Sanhedrin 
unable  to  arrest  Him  as  He  taught  in  public  during  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles  at  Jerusalem;  it  was  this  that  made  the  armed  band  of  His 
enemies,  at  His  mere  look,  fall  before  Him  to  the  ground  in  the  Garden 
of  Gethsemane.  Suddenly,  quietly,  He  asserted  His  freedom,  waived 
aside  His  captors,  and  overawing  them  by  His  simple  glance,  passed 
through  their  midst  unharmed.  Similar  events  have  occurred  in  history, 
and  continue  still  to  occur.  There  is  something  in  defenseless  and  yet 
dauntless  dignity  that  calms  even  the  fury  of  a  mob.  "  They  stood — 
stopped — inquired — were  ashamed — fled — separated."  " 

And  so  He  left  them,  never  apparently  to  return  again  ;  never,  if 
we  are  right  in  the  view  here  taken,  to  preach  again  in  their  little  syna- 
gogue. Did  any  feelings  of  merely  human  regret  weigh  down  His  soul 
while  He  was  wending  His  weary  steps'  down  the  steep  hill-slope 
towards  Cana  of  Galilee?     Did    any  tear  start   in    His  eyes  unbidden  as 

I.  "To  hurl  Him  headlong  down."  The  word  occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament  or  the 
LXX.,  except  in  2  Chron.  xxv.  12.  ■'  Precipitation  "  was  one  form  of  stoning,  which  was  the  recognized 
legal  punishment  (or  blasphemy.  The  scene  of  this  event  was  certainly  not  the  "  Mount  of  Precipitation," 
which  was  much  beyond  a  Sabbath-day's  journey,  being  at  least  two  miles  off.  It  may  have  been  the  clifif 
above  the  Maronite  Church,  which  is  about  forty  feet  high. 

2  Cf.  John  vii.  30,  46 ;  viii.  59  ;  x.  39  ;  xviii.  6. 

3  Luke  iv.  30,  "  He  was  journeying." 


REJECTED  BY  THE  NAZARENES.  173 

He  stood,  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  to  gaze  from  thence  on  the  rich 
plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  the  purple  heights  of  Carmel,  and  the  white 
sands  that  fringe  the  blue  waters  of  the  Mediterranean  ?  Were  there 
any  from  whom  He  grieved  to  be  severed,  in  the  green  secluded  valley 
where  His  manhood  had  labored,  and  His  childhood  played?  Did  He 
cast  one  longing,  lingering  glance  at  the  humble  home  in  which  for  so 
many  years  He  had  toiled  as  the  village  carpenter?  Did  no  companion 
of  His  innocent  boyhood,  no  friend  of  His  sinless  youth,  accompany 
Him  with  awe,  and  pity,  and  regret  ?  Such  questions  are  not,  surely, 
unnatural ;  not,  surely,  irreverent ;— but  they  are  not  answered.  Of  all 
merely  human  emotions  of  His  heart,  except  so  far  as  they  directly 
affect  His  mission  upon  earth,  the  Gospels  are  silent.  We  know  only 
that  thenceforth  other  friends  awaited  Him  away  from  boorish  Nazareth, 
among  the  gentle  and  noble-hearted  fishermen  of  Bethsaida ;  and  that 
thenceforth  His  home,  so  far  as  He  had  a  home,  was  in  the  little  city 
of  Capernaum,  beside  the  sunlit  waters  of  the  Galilean  Lake. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 


THE      BEGINNING      OF      THE      GALILEAN      MINISTRY. 


yp. 


"The  poor  are  being  evangelized." — Matt.  xi.  5. 


's:=04^^  „„ ii I,  ^..'_ 

EJECTED  at  Nazareth,  our  Lord  naturally 
turned  to  the  neighboring  Cana,  where  His 
first  miracle  had  been  wrought  to  gladden 
friends.  He  had  not  long  arrived  when  an 
officer  from  the  neighboring  court  of  Herod 
Antipas,  hearing  of  His  arrival,  came  and 
urgently  entreated  that  He  would  descend  to 
Capernaum  and  heal  his  dying  son.  Although 
our  Lord  never  set  foot  in  Tiberias,  yet  the 
voice  of  John  had  more  than  once  been 
listened  to  with  alarm  ar\d  reverence  in  the 
court  of  the  voluptuous  king."  We  know  that 
Manaen,  the  foster-brother  of  Herod,  was  in 
after  days  a  Christian,  and  we  know  that  among 
the  women  who  ministered  to  Christ  of  their  substance  was  Joanna, 
the  wife  of  Chuza,  Herod's  steward."  As  this  courtier  (/SaffiAixd? ) 
believed  in  Christ  with  his  whole  house,  in  consequence  of  the  miracle 
now  wrought,  it  has  been  conjectured  with  some  probability  that  it  was 
none  other  than  Chuza  himself. 

The  imperious  urgency  of  his  request,  a  request  which  appears  at 
first  to  have  had  but  little  root  in  spiritual  conviction,  needed  a  moment- 
ary check.  It  was  necessary  for  Jesus  to  show  that  He  was  no  mere 
hakeem,  no  mere  benevolent  physician,  ready  at  any  time  to  work  local 
cures,  and  to  place  His  supernatural  powers  at  the  beck  and  call  of  any 
sufferer  who  might  come  to   Him  as  a    desperate    resource.      He  at  once 

1  In  the  general  obscurity  of  the  chronology,  it  seems  clear  (as  we  have  said  before)  that  by  this  time 
John  had  been  cast  into  prison  (Matt.  iv.  12,  13  ;  Mark  i.  14;  Luke  iii.  20).  Comparing  these  passages  of 
the  Synoptists  with  John  iii.  24  ;  iv.  45,  and  following  the  order  of  events  given  in  the  text,  we  may  per- 
haps assume  (though  this  is  not  absolutely  necessary)  that  Galilee  here  means  Northtrn  Galilee,  or  Galilee 
proper. 

2  Acts  xiii.  I  ;  cf.  Luke  viii.  3. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINISTRY.  175 

rebuked  the  spirit  which  demanded  mere  signs  and  prodigies  as  the  sole 
possi-ble  ground  of  faith.'  But  yielding  to  the  father's  passionate  earnest- 
ness, He  dismissed  him  with  the  assurance  that  his  son  lived.  The  in- 
terview had  taken  place  at  the  seventh  hour — i.e.,  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
day.  Even  in  the  short  November  day  it  would  have  been  still  possible 
for  the  father  to  get  to  Capernaum ;  for  if  Cana  be,  as  we  believe,  Kefr 
Kenna,  it  is  not  more  than  five  hours'  distance  from  Capernaum.  But 
the  father's  soul  had  been  calmed  by  faith  in  Christ's  promise,  and  he 
slept  that  night  at  some  intermediate  spot  upon  the  road.  The  next 
day  his  slaves  met  him,  and  told  him  that,  at  the  very  hour  when  Jesus 
had  spoken,  the  fever  had  left  his  son.  This  was  the  second  time  that 
Christ  had  signalized  His  arrival  in  Galilee  by  the  performance  of  a  con- 
spicuous miracle.  The  position  of  the  courtier  caused  it  to  be  widely 
known,  and  it  contributed,  no  doubt,  to  that  joyous  and  enthusiastic 
welcome  which  our  Lord  received  during  that  bright  early  period  of  His 
ministry,  which  has  been  beautifully  called  the  "Galilean   spring."^ 

At  this  point  we  are  again  met  by  difficulties  in  the  chronology, 
which  are  not  only  serious,  but  to  the  certain  solution  of  which  there 
appears  to  be  no  clue.  If  we  follow  exclusively  the  order  given  by  one 
Evangelist,  we  appear  to  run  counter  to  the  scattered  indications  which 
may  be  found  in  another.  That  it  should  be  so  will  cause  no  difficulty 
to  the  candid  mind.  The  Evangelists  do  not  profess  to  be  scrupulously 
guided  by  chronological  sequence.  The  pictures  which  they  give  of  the 
main  events  in  the  life  of  Christ  are  simple  and  harmonious,  and  that 
they  should  be  presented  in  an  informal,  and  what,  with  reference  to 
mere  literary  considerations,  would  be  called  an  inartistic  manner,  is  not 
only  in  accordance  with  the  position  of  the  writers,  but  is  an  additional 
confirmation  of  our  conviction  that  we  are  reading  the  records  of  a  life 
which,  in  its  majesty  and  beauty,  infinitely  transcended  the  capacities  of 
invention  or  imagination  in  the  simple  and  faithful  annalists  by  whom  it 
was  recorded. 

It  was  not,  as  we  have  already  observed,  the  object  of  St.  John  to 
narrate  the  Galilean  ministry,  the  existence  of  which  he  distinctly  implies 
(vii.   3,  4),  but    which    had    already    been    fully  recorded.     Circumstances 

1  "  Marvels."  This  is  a  half-disparaging  term  for  miracles,  rarely  used  in  the  Gospels,  and  derived 
only  from  the  sense  of  astonishment  which  they  caused. 

2  Ewald  says  that  "  no  one  can  doubt "  as  to  the  identity  of  this  incident  with  that  narrated  of  the 
centurion's  servant.  It  is,  however,  seriously  doubted — nay,  entirely  disputed — by  many  of  the  ablest 
commentators,  from  Chrysostom  down  to  Ebrard  and  Tischendorf. 


176  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

had  given  to  the  Evangelist  a  minute  and  profound  knowledge  of  the 
ministry  in  Judea,  which  is  by  the  others  presupposed,  though  not  nar- 
rated.' At  this  point  accordingly  (iv.  54)  he  breaks  off,  and  only  con- 
tinues the  thread  of  his  narrative  at  the  return  of  Jesus  to  "a"  or 
"the"  feast  of  the  Jews  (v.  i).  If  the  feast  here  alluded  to  were  the 
feast  of  Purim,  as  we  shall  see  is  probably  the  case,  then  St.  John  here 
passes  over  the  history  of  several  months.  We  fall  back,  therefore,  on 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  for  the  events  of  the  intervening  ministry  on  the 
shores  of  Gennesareth.  And  since  we  have  often  to  choose  between  the 
order  of  events  as  narrated  by  the  three  Evangelists,  we  must  here  follow 
that  given  by  St.  Luke,  both  because  it  appears  to  us  intrinsically  prob- 
able, and  because  St.  Luke,  unlike  the  two  previous  Evangelists,  seems 
to  have  been  guided,  so  far  as  his  information  allowed,  by  chronological 
considerations.' 

It  seems,  then,  that  after  leaving  Cana,  our  Lord  went  at  once  to 
Capernaum,  accompanied  apparently  by  His  mother  and  His  breth- 
ren, and  made  that  town  His  home.^  His  sisters  were  probably 
married,  and  did  not  leave  their  native  Nazareth ;  but  the 
dreadful  insult  which  Jesus  had  received  would  have  been  alone 
sufficient  to  influence  His  family  to  leave  the  place,  even  if  they  did 
not  directly  share  in  the  odium  and  persecution  which  His  words 
had  caused.  Perhaps  the  growing  alienation  between  Himself  and  them 
may  have  been  due,  in  part,  to  this  circumstance.  They  must  have  felt, 
and  we  know  that  they  did  feel,  a  deeply-seated  annoyance,  if,  refusing  to 
admit  the  full  awfulness  of  His  mission,  and  entirely  disapproving  the  form 
of  its  manifestation,  they  yet  felt  themselves  involved  in  hatred  and  ruin 
as  a  direct  consequence  of  His  actions.  Certain  it  is  that,  although  appar- 
ently they  were  living  at  Capernaum,  their  home  was  not  His  home. 
Home,  in  the  strict  sense.  He  had  none;  but  the  house  of  which  He 
made  ordinary  use  appears  to  have  been  that  which  belonged  to  His  chief 
apostle.     It  is  true  that  Simon  and  Andrew  are  said  to  have  belonged  to 

1  Distinctly,  for  instance,  in  Matt.  iv.  25;  xxiii.  37,  "  how  often ;"  xix.  i  ;  Luke  x.  3S,  &c. 

2  Luke  i.  i«— 3. 

3  '•  His  own  city"  (Matt.  ix.  i  ;  of.  Matt.  xvii.  24).  St.  Matthew  (iv.  15,  16)  sees  in  this  locality  of  the 
ministry  an  idealized  fulfillment  of  Isa.  ix.  i.  The  LXX.  is  here  loose,  and  the  quotation  also  differs  from 
the  Hebrew  ;  less  so,  however,  than  might  at  first  sight  appear,  because  the  "  did  more  grievously  afflict 
her"  of  the  English  version  (which  would  utterly  contradict  the  purport  of  St.  Matthew's  allusion)  should 
be  rather  "  made  heavy,"  i.e.,  "  honored."  "  Way  of  the  sea,"  because  the  great  caravan  road  ran  along  its 
western  shore.  St.  Luke  alone  calls  the  Sea  of  Galilee  "a  lake,"  because  he  wrote  for  Gentiles.  "  Beyond 
Jordan  "  perhaps  refers  to  Persea. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINISTRY.  177 

Bethsaida,  but  they  may  easily  have  engaged  the  use  of  a  house  at  Caper- 
naum, belonging  to  Peter's  mother-in-law ;  or,  since  Bethsaida  is  little  more 
than  a  suburb  or  part  of  Capernaum,  they  may  have  actually  moved  for 
the  convenience  of  their  Master  from  the  one  place  to  the  other. 

The  first  three  Evangelists  have  given  us  a  detailed  account  of  the 
Lord's  first  Sabbath  at  Capernaum,  and  it  has  for  us  an  intrinsic  interest, 
because  it  gives  us  one  remarkable  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  He 
spent  the  days  of  His  active  ministry.  It  is  the  best  commentary  on  that 
epitome  of  His  life  which  presents  it  to  us  in  its  most  splendid  originality 
— that  "He  went  about  doing  good."  It  is  the  point  which  the  rarest  and 
noblest  of  His  followers  have  found  it  most  difficult  to  imitate;  it  is  the 
point  in  which  His  life  transcended  most  absolutely  the  ideal  of  the  attain- 
ments of  His  very  greatest  forerunners.  The  seclusion  of  the  hermit,  the 
self-maceration  of  the  ascetic,  the  rapture  of  the  mystic — all  these  are  easier 
and  more  common  than  the  unwearied  toil  of  a  self-renouncing  love. 

The  day  began  in  the  synagogue,  perhaps  in  the  very  building  which  the 
Jews  owed  to  the  munificence  of  the  centurion  proseylte.  If  Capernaum 
were  indeed  Tell  Hdm,  then  the  white  marble  ruins  which  still  stand  on  a 
little  eminence  above  the  lake,  and  still  encumber  the  now  waste  and  deso- 
late site  of  the  town  with  their  fragments  of  elaborate  sculpture,  may  possibly 
be  the  ruins  of  this  very  building.  The  synagogue,  which  is  not  very 
large,  must  have  been  densely  crowded ;  and  to  teach  an  earnest  and  ex- 
pectant crowd — to  teach  as  He  taught,  not  in  dull,  dead,  conventional 
formulae,  but  with  thoughts  that  breathed  and  words  that  burned — to  teach 
as  they  do  who  are  swayed  by  the  emotion  of  the  hour,  while  heart 
speaks  to  heart — must  have  required  no  slight  energy  of  life,  must  have 
involved  no  little  exhaustion  of  the  physical  powers.  But  this  was  not  all. 
While  He  was  speaking,  while  the  audience  of  simple-hearted  yet  faithful, 
intelligent,  warlike  people  were  listening  to  Him  in  mute  astonishment, 
hanging  on  His  lips  with  deep  and  reverential  admiration — suddenly  the 
deep  silence  was  broken  by  the  wild  cries  and  obscene  ravings  of  one  of 
those  unhappy  wretches  who  were  universally  believed  to  be  under  the  in- 
fluence of  impure  spirits,  and  who — in  the  absence  of  any  retreat  for  such 
sufferers — had,  perhaps,  slipped  in  unobserved    among  the  throng.'     Even 

I  Luke  iv.  33,  "  A  spirit  of  an  unclean  devil,"  "cried  with  a  loud  voice  ;"  cf.  Mark  i.  23.  The  "cry" 
is,  perhaps,  not  "  desist  !  let  us  alone  !"  but  a  wild  cry  of  horror.  The  Jews,  like  most  ancient  nations, 
attributed  every  evil  result  immediately  to  the  action  of  demons,  e.g.,  even  Noah's  drunkenness.  In  Ps. 
xci.  6,  the  LXX.  renders  "  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at  noonday,"  by  "  mid-day  demons."  If  a  woman 
does  not  cover  her  head,  demons  sit  upon  her  hair.  If  you  do  not  wash  your  hands  before  meals,  you  be- 
come the  victim  of  a  demon.     "If  a  bull  rushes  at  you  in  the  field,"  says  the  Talmud,  "Satan  leaps  up 


12 


178  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  poor  demoniac,  in  the  depths  of  his  perturbed  and  degraded  nature, 
had  felt  the  haunting  spell  of  that  pure  presence,  of  that  holy  voice,  of 
that  divine  and  illuminating  message.  But,  distorted  as  his  whole  moral 
being  was,  he  raved  against  it,  as  though  by  the  voices  of  the  evil  demons 
who  possessed  him,  and  while  he  saluted  "Jesus  the  Nazarene"  as  the 
Holy  One  of  God,  yet,  with  agonies  of  terror  and  hatred,  demanded  to  be 
let  alone,  and  not  to  be  destroyed. 

Then  followed  a  scene  of  thrilling  excitement.  Turning  to  the  furious 
and  raving  sufferer,  recognizing  the  duality  of  his  consciousness,  address- 
ing the  devil  which  seemed  to  be  forcing  from  him  these  terrified  ejacula- 
tions, Jesus  said,  "Hold  thy  peace,"  and  come  out  of  him."  He  never 
accepted  or  tolerated  this  ghastly  testimony  to  His  origin  and  office. 
The  calm,  the  sweetness,  the  power  of  the  divine  utterance  were  irresist- 
ible. The  demoniac  fell  to  the  ground  in  a  fearful  paroxysm, 
screaming  and  convulsed.  But  it  was  soon  over.  The  man 
arose  cured;  his  whole  look  and  bearing  showed  that  he  was  dispos- 
sessed of  the  overmastering  influence,  and  was  now  in  his  right  mind. 
A  miracle  so  gracious  and  so  commanding  had  never  before  been  so 
strikingly  manifested,  and  the  worshippers  separated  with  emotions  of  in- 
describable wonder." 

from  between  his  horns."  All  mental  aberration,  all  sudden  sickness,  all  melancholy  tendencies,  all  unex- 
pected obstacles,  were,  and  in  the  East  still  are,  regarded  as  due  to  the  direct  influence  of  demons.  These 
demons  they  believed  to  be  the  spirits  of  the  wicked.  That  they  regarded  as  demoniacal  possession  what  we 
regard  as  epilepsy  and  mania  is  certain.  This  is  indeed  clear  from  Josephus,  but  the  real  controversy  turns  on 
the  question  whether  much  more  than  this  is  not  possible,  and  whether  in  the  days  of  Christ  much  more  than 
this  was  not  a  common  phenomenon.  It  is  not  one  of  those  questions  which  seem  to  me  to  be  of  vital  impor- 
tance, and  dogmatism  on  either  side  must  be  left  to  those  who  think  it  necessary. 

1  Luke  iv.  35  ;  cf.  Acts  xvi.  18.  Those  who  reject  the  reality  of  demoniacal  possession,  and  therefore 
regard  the  action  as  a  figurative  concession  to  the  sufferer's  delusions,  appeal  to  such  expressions  as  Matt, 
viii.  26  ;  Luke  iv.  39.  Although  it  is  a  principle  which  has  received  the  sanction  of  some  very  eminent 
Fathers,  it  must  be  applied  with  the  most  extreme  caution.  Before  deciding  dogmatically  that  there 
never  can  have  been  any  such  thing  as  demoniacal  possession,  many  strange  facts  and  narratives  have  to 
be  taken  into  account.     Among  others  see  "The  Devils  of  Morzine  "  (Corn  hill  Afagazine,  xi.  468). 

2  It  is  worth  while  to  set  side  by  side  with  this  an  instance  of  exorcism,  such  as  was  commonly  prac- 
ticed by  Jews  at  this  very  period  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  27  ;  Mark  ix.  38  :  Acts  xix.  13),  the  invention  of  which  Jose- 
phus attributes  to  Solomon,  and  which  he  tells  us  he  had  himself  witnessed.  He  says  that  he  had  seen  a 
Jew  named  Eleazar  casting  out  demons  in  the  presence  of  Vespasian,  Titus,  their  officers  and  army.  His 
method  was  to  draw  the  demon  out  through  the  nostrils  by  a  ring  and  a  particular  root.  Hereupon  the 
man  fell  down,  and  Eleazar,  with  various  incantations  and  in  the  name  of  Solomon,  adjured  the  demon  not 
to  return.  And  then,  in  proof  that  the  cure  was  effectual,  he  put  a  basin  of  water  a  little  way  off,  and  bade 
the  demon,  as  he  departed,  to  overturn  it !  (Jos.  Antt.  viii.  2,  §  5).  Josephus  was  a  man  of  astute  mind  and 
liberal  experience,  familiar  with  heathen  culture,  and  a  constant  denizen  of  courts  and  camps.  The  Evan- 
gelists, on  the  other  hand,  were  simple,  untrained,  and  ignorant  men  ;  yet  to  what  scorn  would  they  have 
been  subjected — how  would  their  credulity  and  superstition  have  been  derided — if  they  had  told  the  story 
of  such  an  exorcism  as  this  ?  And  if  this  was  the  current  mode,  we  may  the  better  understand  the  pro- 
found sensation  caused  in  the  minds  of  the  spectators  bv  the  effect  of  Christ's  simple  word. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINISTRY.  179 

Rising  from  the  seat  of  the  maphtir  in  the  synagogue,  Christ  retired 
into  the  house  of  Simon.  Here  again  He  was  met  by  the  strong  appeal 
of  sickness  and  suffering.  Simon,  whom  He  had  already  bound  to  Him- 
self on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  by  the  first  vague  call  to  his  future 
Apostolate,  was  a  married  man,'  and  his  wife's  mother  lay  stricken  down 
by  a  violent  access  of  fever."  One  request  from  the  afflicted  family  was 
sufficient :  there  was  no  need,  as  in  the  case  of  the  more  worldly  noble- 
man, for  importunate  entreaty.  He  stood  over  her ;  He  took  her  by  the 
hand  ;  He  raised  her  up  ;  He  rebuked  the  fever  ;  His  voice,  stirring  her 
whole  being,  dominated  over  the  sources  of  disease,  and  restored  instan- 
taneously to  health,  she  rose  and  busied  herself  about  the  household 
duties. 

Possibly  the  strictness  of  observance  which  marked  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath secured  for  our  Lord  a  brief  interval  for  refreshment ;  but  no  sooner 
did  the  sun  begin  to  set,  than  the  eager  multitude,  barely  waiting  for 
the  full  close  of  the  Sabbath  hours,  began  to  seek  His  aid.  The 
whole  city  came  densely  thronging  round  the  doors  of  the  humble  home, 
bringing  with  them  their  demoniacs  and  their  diseased.  What  a  strange 
scene !  There  lay  the  limpid  lake,  reflecting  in  pale  rose-color  the  last 
flush  of  sunset  that  gilded  the  western  hills  ;  and  here,  amid  the  peace 
of  nature,  was  exposed,  in  hideous  variety,  the  sickness  and  misery  of 
man,  while  the  stillness  of  the  Sabbath  twilight  was  broken  by  the  shrieks 
of  demoniacs  who  testified  to  the  Presence  of  the  Son  of  God.^ 

"  A  lazar-house  it  seemed,  wherein  were  laid 
Numbers  of  all  diseased  ;  all  maladies 
Of  ghastly  spasm,  and  racking  tortures,  qualms 
•  Of  heart-sick  agony,  all  feverous  kinds, 

Demoniac  frenzy,  moping  melancholy 
And  moonstruck  madness  ;" 

and  amidst  them  all,  not 

"  Despair 
Tended  the  sick,  busiest  from  couch  to  couch. 
And  over  them  triumphant  Death  his  dart 
Shook,"     .... 

but  far  into  the  deepening  dusk,  the  only  person  there  who  was  unex- 
cited  and  unalarmed — hushing  by  His  voice  the  delirium  of  madness  and 
the  screams  of  epilepsy,*  touching  disease  into  health  again  by  laying  on 
each  unhappy  and  tortured'  sufferer  His  pure  and  gentle  hands — moved, 

X  Cf.  I  Cor.  ix.  5.  2  Luke  iv.  38. 

3  Luke  iv.  40.  4  Matt.  iv.  24.  5  Ibid. 


l8o  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

in  His  love  and  tenderness,  the  young  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  the  Christ, 
the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Unalarmed  indeed,  and  unexcited,  but  not 
free  from  sorrow  and  suffering.  For  sympathy  is  nothing  else  than  a 
fellow-feeling  with  others  ;  a  sensible  participation  in  their  joy  or  woe. 
And  Jesus  was  touched  with  a  feeling  of  their  infirmities.  Those  cries 
pierced  to  His  inmost  heart  ;  the  groans  and  sighs  of  all  that  collective 
misery  filled  His  whole  soul  with  pity  ;  he  bled  for  them  ;  He  suffered 
with  them;  their  agonies  were  His;  so  that  the  Evangelist  St.  Matthew 
recalls  and  echoes  in  this  place,  with  a  slight  difference  of  language, 
the  words  of  Isaiah,  "Surely  He  bore  our  griefs  and  carried  our 
sorrows." 

The  fame  of  that  marvelous  day  rang  through  all  Galilee  and 
Peraea,  and  even  to  the  farthest  parts  of  Syria,'  and  we  might  well 
have  imagined  that  the  wearied  Saviour  would  have  needed  a  long 
repose.  But  to  Him  the  dearest  and  best  repose  was  solitude  and 
silence,  where  He  might  be  alone  and  undisturbed  with  His  heavenly 
Father.  The  little  plain  of  Gennesareth  was  still  covered  with  the 
deep  darkness  which  precedes  the  dawn,"  when,  unobserved  by  all, 
Jesus  rose  and  went  away  to  a  desert  place,  and  there  refreshed  His  spirit 
with  quiet  prayer.  Although  the  work  which  He  was  sent  to  do  obliged 
Him  often  to  spend  His  days  amid  thronging  and  excited  multitudes.  He 
did  not  love  the  tumult,  and  avoided  even  the  admiration  and  gratitude 
of  those  who  felt  in  His  presence  a  spring  of  life.  But  He  was  not 
suffered  thus  to  remain,  even  for  a  brief  period,  in  rest  and  seclusion. 
The  multitude  sought  Him  persistently;  Simon  and  his  friends  almost 
hunted  for  Him  in  their  eager  desire  to  see  and  to  hear.  They  even 
wished  to  detain  Him  among  them  by  gentle  force.'  But  He  quietly 
resisted  their  importunity.  It  was  not  His  object  to  become  the  center 
of  an  admiring  populace,  or  to  spend  His  whole  time  in  working 
miracles,  which,  though  they  were  deeds  of  mercy,  were  merely  intended 
to  open  their  hearts  to  His  diviner  teaching.  His  blessings  were  not  to 
be  confined  to  Capernaum.  Dalmanutha,  Magdala,  Bethsaida,  Chorazin 
were  all  near  at  hand.  "Let  us  go,"  He  said,  "to  the  adjoining  country 
towns*  to  preach  the  kingdom  of  God  there  also  ;    for  therefor  am  I  sent." 

1  Matt.  iT.  24. 

2  Mark  i.  35.     One  of  the  many  little  graphic  touches,  derived  doubtless  from  the  Apostle  St.  Peter, 
la  which  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark  abounds. 

3  Luke  ir.  42  ;  Mark  i.  36. 

4  Mark  i.  38.     Cf.  Luke  iv.  43. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINISTRY.  i8i 

It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  Jesus  put  His  intention  into  instant 
effect.  It  seems  as  if  He  so  far  yielded  to  the  anxiety  of  the  multitude 
as  to  give  them  one  more  address  before  He  set  forth  to  preach  in  that 
populous  neighborhood.'  He  bent  His  steps  towards  the  shore,  and 
probably  to  the  spot  where  the  little  boats  of  His  earliest  disciples  were 
anchored,  near  the  beach  of  hard  white  sand  which  lines  the  water-side ' 
at  Bethsaida.  At  a  little  distance  behind  Him  followed  an  ever-gather- 
ing concourse  of  people  from  all  the  neighborhood ;  and  while  he  stopped 
to  speak  to  them,  the  two  pairs  of  fisher-brethren,  Simon  and  Andrew, 
and  James  and  John,  pursued  the  toils  by  which  they  earned  their  daily 
bread.  While  Jesus  had  retired  to  rest  for  a  few  short  hours  of  the 
night,  Simon  and  his  companions,  impelled  by  the  necessities  of  a  lot 
which  they  seem  to  have  borne  with  noble-minded  cheerfulness,  had  been 
engaged  in  fishing ,  and,  having  been  wholly  unsuccessful,  two  of  them, 
seated  on  the  shore — probably,  in  that  clear  still  atmosphere,  within 
hearing  of  His  voice — were  occupying  their  time  in  washing,  and  two, 
seated  in  their  boat  with  their  hired  servants,  and  Zebedee,  their  father, 
were  mending  their  nets.'  As  Jesus  spoke,  the  multitude — some  in  their 
desire  to  catch  every  syllable  that  fell  from  the  lips  of  Him  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake,  and  some  in  their  longings  to  touch  Him,  and 
so  be  healed  of  whatever  plagues  they  had — thronged  upon  Him 
closer  and  closer,  impeding  His  movements  with  dangerous  and 
unseemly  pressure.^  He  therefore  beckoned  to  Simon  to  get 
into  his  boat  and  push  it  ashore,  so  that  He  might  step  on 
board  of  it,  and  teach  the  people  from  thence.  Seated  in  this 
pleasant  pulpit,  safe  from  the  inconvenient  contact  with  the  multi- 
tude, He  taught  them  from  the  little  boat  as  it  rocked  on  the  blue 
ripples,  sparkling  in  the  morning  sun.     And  w^hen   His  sermon  was  over, 

1  I  must  again  remark  that  while  adopting  the  order  which  appears  to  me  most  probable,  and  which 
in  this  part  of  the  narrative  is  that  given  by  St.  Luke,  and  is  followed  (among  other  eminent  authorities) 
by  Lange,  repeated  examination  has  convinced  me  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  any  certainty  about  the 
^•jrac/ sequence  of  events.  The  data  of  time  are  far  too  vague  to  admit  of  definiteness  in  the  chronological 
arrangement. 

2  I  have  here  attempted  to  combine,  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  in  one  continuous  narrative,  the  perfectly 
comprehensible,  but  slightly  differing,  accounts  of  the  Synoptists  (Matt.  iv.  iS — 22  ;  Mark  i.  16 — 20  ;  Luke 
v.  I — 11).  Let  me  remark — (i)  that  any  one  whose  faith  is  shaken  by  the  so-called  "  discrepancies"  of 
these  and  similar  stories  must  (a)  either  hold  some  very  rigid,  untenable,  and  superstitious  view  of  in- 
spiration, or  {b)  be  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  different  aspects  assumed  by  perfectly  truthful  but  con- 
fessedly fragmentary  testimonies  ;  and  (2)  that  the  very  variety  in  the  narratives,  being  in  no  respect 
inconsistent  with  essential  and  truthful  unity,  is  a  valuable  proof  of  the  independence  of  the  Gospel 
witnesses. 

3  See  Mark  iii.  9 — 12. 


1 82  THE  PRINCE  OF  GI.ORY. 

lie  thought  not  of  Himself  and  of  His  own  fatigue,  but  of  His  poor 
and  disappointed  disciples.  He  knew  that  they  had  toiled  in  vaiii  ; 
He  had  observed  that  even  while  He  spoke  they  had  been  preparing  for 
some  future  and  more  prosperous  expedition ;  and  with  a  sympathy 
which  never  omitted  an  act  of  kindness,  He  ordered  Peter  to  push  out 
his  boat  into  the  deep,  and  all  of  them  to  cast  out  their  nets  once 
more."  Peter  was  in  a  despondent  mood  ;  but  the  mere  word  of  One 
whom  he  so  deeply  reverenced,  and  whose  power  he  had  already  wit- 
nessed, was  sufficient.  And  his  faith  was  rewarded.  Instantly  a  vast 
haul  of  fishes  crowded  into  the  nets. 

A  busy  scene  followed.  The  instinct  of  work  first  prevailed.  Simon 
and  Andrew  beckoned  to  Zebedee  and  his  sons  and  servants  to  come  in 
their  boat  and  help  to  save  the  miraculous  draught  and  straining  nets; 
both  boats  were  filled  to  the  gunwale  with  the  load ;  and  at  the  first 
moment  that  the  work  was  finished,  and  Peter  recognized  the  whole 
force  of  the  miracle,  he  falls,  with  his  usual  eager  impetuosity,  at  his 
Master's  feet — to  thank  Him  ?  to  offer  Him  henceforth  an  absolute  de- 
votion ? — No ;  but  (and  here  we  have  a  touch  of  indescribable  truth- 
fulness, utterly  beyond  the  power  of  the  most  consummate  intellect  to 
have  invented)  to  exclaim,  "  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man, 
O  Lord ! " '  A  flash  of  supernatural  illumination  had  revealed  to  him 
both  his  own  sinful  unworthiness  and  who  He  was  wdio  was  with  him 
in  the  boat.  It  was  the  cry  of  self-loathing  which  had  already  realized 
something  nobler.  It  was  the  first  impulse  of  fear  and  amazement, 
before  they  had  had  time  to  grow  into  adoration  and  love.  St.  Peter  did 
not  mcaji  the  "  Depart  from  me  ; "  he  only  meant — and  this  was  known 
to  the  Searcher  of  hearts — "  I  am  utterly  unworthy  to  be  near  Thee, 
yet  let  me  stay."  How  unlike  was  this  cry  of  his  passionate  and  trem- 
bling humility  to  the  bestial  ravings  of  the  unclean  spirits,  who  bade 
the  Lord  to  let  them  alone,  or  to  the  hardened  degradation  of  the 
filthy  Gadarenes,  who  preferred  to  the  presence  oi  their  Saviour  the 
tending  of  their  swine  ! 

And  how  gently  the  answer  came :  "  Fear  not ;  from  henceforth 
thou  shalt  catch  men."  Our  Lord,  as  in  all  His  teaching,  seized  and 
applied  with  exquisite  significance  the  circumstances  of  the  moment. 
Round   them  in    the    little  boat    lay  in  heaps    the   glittering  spoil  of   the 

I  Luke  V.  4. 

3  "  A  sinful  man  "  (Luke  v.  8),   a  confession  of  individual  guilt  ;  not  "  a  sinful  being.     Comp.  Exod. 
NX.  iS,  19  :  Judg.  xiii.  22  ;  i  Kings  xvii.  iS  ;  Dan.  x.  17  ;  Isa.  vi.  5. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINIST.vY.  183 

lake — glittering,  but  with  a  glitter  that  began  to  fade  in  death.'  Hence- 
forth that  sinful  man,  washed  and  cleansed,  and  redeemed  and  sanctified, 
Avas  to  chase,  with  nobler  labor,  a  spoil  which,  by  being  entangled  in 
the  Gospel  net,  would  not  die,  but  be  saved  alive.'  And  his  brother, 
and  his  partners,  they  too  were  to  become  "  fishers  of  men."  This  final 
call  was  enough.  They  had  already  been  called  by  Jesus  on  the  banks  of 
Jordan;  they  had  already  heard  the  Baptist's  testimony ;  but  they  had  not 
yet  been  bidden  to  forsake  all  and  follow  Him  ;  they  had  not  yet  grown 
familiar  with  the  miracles  of  power  which  confirmed  their  faith  ;  they  had 
not  yet  learned  fully  to  recognize  that  they  who  followed  Him  were  not 
only  safe  in  His  holy  keeping,  but  should  receive  a  thousandfold  more 
in  all  that  constitutes  true  and  noble  happiness  even  in  this  life — in  the 
world  to  come,  life  everlasting. 

We  have  already  seen  that,  at  the  very  beginning  of  His  ministry, 
our  Lord  had  prepared  six  of  His  Apostles  for  a  call  to  His  future  ser- 
vice ;  four  of  whom  were  on  this  occasion  bidden  not  only  to  regard 
Him  as  their  Master,  but  henceforth  to  leave  all  and  follow  Him.  There 
was  but  one  other  of  the  Apostles  who  received  a  separate  call — the 
Evangelist,  St.  Matthew.  His  call,  though  narrated  in  different  sequences 
by  each  of  the  Synoptists,  probably  took  place  about  this  time.^  At  or 
near  Capernaum  there  was  a  receipt  of  custom.  Lying  as  the  town  did 
at  the  nucleus  of  roads  which  diverged  to  Tyre,  to  Damascus,  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  to  Sepphoris,  it  was  a  busy  center  of  merchandise,  and  there- 
fore a  natural  place  for  the  collection  of  tribute  and  taxes.  These  im- 
posts were  to  the  Jews  pre-eminently  distasteful.  The  mere  fact  of  hav- 
ing to  pay  them  wounded  their  tenderest  sensibilities.  They  were  not 
only  a  badge  of  servitude ;  they  were  not  only  a  daily  and  terrible  wit- 
ness that  God  seemed  to  have  forsaken  His  land,  and  that  all  the  splen- 
did Messianic  hopes  and  promises  of  their  earlier  history  were  merged  in 
the  disastrous  twilight  of  subjugation  to  a  foreign  rule  which  was  cruelly 
and  contemptuously  enforced  ;  but,  more  than  this,  the  mere  payment  of 
such   imposts  wore  almost  the  appearance  of  apostacy  to  the  sensitive  and 

1  Hence  the  extreme  frequency  of  the  fish  as  a  symbol  of  Christians  in  early  Christian  art  and 
literature. 

2  Luke  V.  10,  "  thou  shalt  be  a  taker-alive  of  men." 

3  By  St.  Matthew  himself,  after  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  miracle  of  the  Gadarene  demoniacs, 
and  the  cure  of  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy  (;.\.  9);  by  St.  Mark,  after  the  cure  of  the  paralytic,  but  some 
time  before  the  visit  to  Gergesa  (ii.  14);  by  St.  Luke,  after  the  cure  of  the  paralytic,  but  before  the  choice 
of  the  Twelve,  ar.d  before  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount(v.  27).  It  seems,  however,  to  have  been  the  wish  of 
all  three  tn  rnrrate  it  in  immediate  connection  with  the  feast  which  he  gave  in  Christ's  honor  ;  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  thi  fjast  was  given  immediately  after  his  cail. 


l84  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

scrupulous  mind  of  a  genuine  Jew.'  It  seemed  to  be  a  violation  of  the 
first  principles  of  the  Theocracy,  such  as  could  only  be  excused  as  the 
result  of  absolute  compulsion.  We  cannot,  therefore,  wonder  that  the 
officers  who  gathered  these  taxes  were  regarded  with  profound  dislike. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  those  with  whom  the  provincials  came  in 
contact  were  not  the  Roman  knights — the  real  publicani,  who  farmed  the 
taxes — but  were  the  merest  subordinates,  often  chosen  from  the  dregs  of 
the  people,  and  so  notorious  as  a  class  for  their  malpractices,  that  they 
were  regarded  almost  with  horror,  and  were  always  included  in  the  same 
category  with  harlots  and  sinners.  When  an  occupation  is  thus  despised 
and  detested,  it  is  clear  that  its  members  are  apt  to  sink  to  the  level  at 
which  they  are  placed  by  the  popular  odium.  And  if  a  Jew  could  scarcely 
persuade  himself  that  it  was  right  to  pay  taxes,  how  much  more  heinous 
a  crime  must  it  have  been  in  his  eyes  to  become  the  questionably-honest 
instrument  for  collecting  them  !  If  a  publican  was  hated,  how  still  more  intense 
must  have  been  the  disgust  entertained  against  a  publican  who  was  also  a  Jew  ! " 

But  He  who  came  to  seek  and  save  the  lost — He  who  could  evoke 
Christian  holiness  out  of  the  midst  of  heathen  corruption — could  make, 
even  out  of  a  Jewish  publican,  the  Apostle  and  the  first  Evangelist  of 
a  new  and  living  Faith.  His  choice  of  Apostles  was  dictated  by  a  spirit 
far  different  from  that  of  calculating  policy  or  conventional  prudence. 
He  rejected  the  dignified  scribe  (Matt.  viii.  19)  ;  He  chose  the  despised 
and  hated  tax-gatherer.  It  was  the  glorious  unworldliness  of  a  Divine 
insight  and  a  perfect  charity,  and  St.  Matthew  more  than  justified  it  by 
turning  his  knowledge  of  writing  to  a  sacred  use,  and  becoming  the 
earliest  biographer  of  his  Saviour  and  his  Lord. 

No  doubt  Matthew  had  heard  some  of  the  discourses,  had  seen 
some  of  the  miracles  of  Christ.  His  heart  had  been  touched,  and  to  the 
eyes  of  Him  who  despised  none  and  despaired  of  none,  the  publican, 
even  as  he  sat  at  "  the  receipt  of  custom,"  ^  was  ready  for  the  call.     One 

1  Deut.  xvii.  15.  "  If  we  can  imagine  an  Irish  Roman  Catholic  in  Ireland  undertaking  the  functions 
of  a  Protestant  tithe  proctor,  we  can  realize  the  detestation  in  which  the  publicans  were  held." 

2  The  title  "  publican,"  as  a  term  of  opprobrium,  was  so  thoroughly  proverbial  that,  if  we  may  trust 
the  exact  report  of  His  words,  it  was  even  used  in  that  sense  by  our  Lord  Himself  :  •'  Let  him  be  unto 
thee  as  a  heathen  man  and  a  publican  "  (Matt,  xviii.  17).  The  Jews  had  a  proverb,  "  Take  not  a  wife  out 
of  the  family  where  there  is  a  publican,  for  they  are  all  publicans."  The  Gentiles  did  not  think  much  better 
of  them.  Theocritus,  in  answer  to  the  question,  which  were  the  worst  kind  of  wild  beasts,  said,  "  On  the 
mountains,  bears  and  lions  ;  in  cities,  publicans  and  pettifoggers." 

3  This  •■  receipt  of  custom  "  is  said  to  have  been  at  the  seaside  ;  hence,  in  the  Hebrew  Gospel  of  St 
Matthew,  "publican"  is  rendered  "lord  of  the  passage."  The  publicans  are  said  to  have  delivered  to 
those  who  paid  toll,  a  ticket  to  free  them  on  the  other  side. 


HEALING    AT    THE    I'OuL    uF    IJETIIESDA. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  GALILEAN  MINISTRY.  185 

word  was  enough.  The  "  Follow  me  "  which  showed  to  Matthew  that  his 
Lord  loved  him,  and  was  ready  to  use  him  as  a  chosen  instrument  in 
spreading  the  good  tidings  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  was  sufficient  to 
break  the  temptations  of  avarice  and  the  routine  of  a  daily  calling,  and 
"he  left  all,  rose  up,  and  followed  Him,"  touched  into  noblest  transfor- 
mation by  the  Ithuriel-spear  of  a  forgiving  and  redeeming  love.' 

I  It  is  here  assumed  that  Matthew  is  identical  .with  Levi.  The  '  ■  called  "  of  Matt.  ix.  9  implies  a  change 
of  name.  His  name  may  have  been  changed  6y  Christ,  perhaps,  in  part  to  obliterate  the  painful  reminis- 
cences of  his  late  discreditable  calling.  The  name  Matthew  (if  with  Gesenius  we  regard  it  as  equivalent  to 
Mattithjah)  means,  like  Nathanael  and  Theodore,  "gift  of  God."  If  the  Evangelist  himself  naturally  prefers 
this  name,  whereas  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  call  him  by  the  name  which  he  bore  when  he  received  Christ's 
summons,  on  the  other  hand  we  should  note  the  touching  humility  with  which  he  alone  of  the  Evangelists 
gives  to  himself  in  the  list  of  the  Apostles  (x.  3)  the  dishonorable  tiUe  of  "  publican." 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 


u  Hr|^^. 


^\ 


^ 


THE   TWELVE,    AND    THE    SERMON    ON    THE    MOUNT. 
"  Before  Christ's  coming  the  Law  bade  but  aided  not  ;  thenceforth  it  both  bids  and  aids." — AuGt;sTlNE. 

FTER    one  of    His    days    of   loving   and    ceaseless 
toil,  Jesus,  as    was    His    wont,    found    rest    and 
peace  in  prayer.     "  He  went  out  into  a  mount- 
ain " — or,  as  it  should  rather   be    rendered,  into 
the    mountain ' — "  to    pray,    and    continued     all 
night  in  prayer  to  God."      There    is   something 
affecting    beyond    measure    in    the    thought    of 
these   lonely   hours ;    the    absolute    silence    and 
stillness,  broken    by  no    sounds    of    human    life, 
but  only  by  the  hooting  of  the  night-jar  or  the 
howl    of   the   jackal ;    the    stars   of    an    Eastern 
heaven   raining    their   large    luster  out  of  the  unfathomable 
depth  ;    the  figure  of    the    Man  of    Sorrows   kneeling   upon 
the  dewy  grass,  and  gaining   strength  for  His   labors    from 
the  purer  air,  the  more    open  heaven,  of   that    intense    and 
silent  communing  with   His  Father  and.  His  God. 

The  scene  of  this  lonely  vigil,  and  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
was  in  all  probability  the  singular  elevation  known  at  this  day  as  the 
Kurn  Hattin,  or  "Horns  of  Hattin."'  It  is  a  hill  with  a  summit  which 
closely  resembles  an  Oriental  saddle  with  its  two  high  peaks.  On  the 
west  it  rises  very  little  above  the  level  of  a  broad  and  undulating  plain  ; 
on  the  east  it  sinks  precipitately  towards  a  plateau,  on  which  lies,  im- 
mediately beneath  the  cliffs,  the  village  of  Hattin  ;  and  from  this  plateau 
the  traveler  descends  through  a  wild  and  tropic  gorge  to  the  shining 
levels  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee.  It  is  the  only  conspicuous  hill  on  the 
western  side  of  the  lake,  and  it  is  admirably  adapted  by  its  conforma- 
tion, both    to    form  a  place    for    short    retirement,  and  a  rendezvous    for 

1  In  Luke  vi.  12,  "  the  mount"  is  clearly  specific,  though  elsewhere   it  only  means  the  hill  districts. 

2  Robinson  writes   it   Kurun,  which  as  a  plural  is  good   dictionary  Arabic.     I  generally  follow  Mr. 
Porter's  spelling  of  modern  names  in  Palestine,  as  it  certainly  well  represents  the  actual  pronunciation. 


THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  187 

gathering  multitudes.  Hitherward,  in  all  probability,  our  Lord  wandered 
in  the  evening  between  the  rugged  and  brigand-haunted  crags  which  form 
the  sides  of  the  Vale  of  Doves,  stopping,  perhaps,  at  times  to  drink  the 
clear  water  of  the  little  stream,  to  gather  the  pleasant  apples  of  the  yiubk, 
and  to  watch  the  eagles  swooping  down  on  some  near  point  of  rock. 
And  hither,  in  the  morning,  less  heedful  than  their  Divine  Master  of  the 
manifold  beauties  of  the  scene,  the  crowd  followed  Him — loth  even  for  a 
time  to  lose  His  inspiring  presence,  eager  to  listen  to  the  gracious  words 
that  proceeded  out  of  His  mouth. 

It  was  at  dawn  of  day,  and  before  the  crowd  had  assembled,  that  our 
Lord  summoned  into  His  presence  the  disciples  who  had  gradually  gathered 
around  Him.  Hitherto  the  relation  which  bound  them  to  His  person 
seems  to  have  been  loose  and  partial ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  at 
all  realized  its  full  significance.  But  now  the  hour  was  come,  and  out  of 
the  wider  band  of  general  followers  He  made  the  final  and  special  choice 
of  His  twelve  Apostles.  Their  number  was  insignificant  compared  to  the 
pompous  retinue  of  hundreds  who  called  themselves  followers  of  a  Hillel 
or  a  Gamaliel,  and  their  position  in  life  was  humble  and  obscure.  Simon 
and  Andrew  the  sons  of  Jonas,  James  and  John  the  sons  of  Zabdia,  and 
Philip,  were  of  the  little  village  of  Bethsaida.  If  Matthew  be  the  same 
as  Levi,  he  was  a  son  of  Alphseus,  and  therefore  a  brother  of  James  the 
Less  and  of  Jude,  the  brother  of  James,  who  is  generally  regarded  as 
identical  with  Lebbseus  and  Thaddaeus.  They  belonged  in  all  probability 
to  Cana  or  Capernaum,  and  if  there  were  any  ground  for  believing  the 
tradition '  which  says  that  Marj',  the  wife  of  Alphaeus  or  Klopas,  was  a 
younger  sister  of  the  Virgin,  then  we  should  have  to  consider  these  two 
brothers  as  first  cousins  of  our  Lord.  Nathanael  or  Bartholomew  was  of 
Cana  in  Galilee."  Thomas  and  Simon  Zelotes  were  also  Galileans.  Judas 
Iscariot  was  the  son  of  a  Simon  Iscariot,  but  whether  this  Simon  is 
identical  with  the  Zealot  cannot  be  determined.  Of  these,  "the 
glorious    company    of    the    Apostles,"    three,  James    the    Less,^  Jude  [the 

1  The  punctuation  of  John  xix.  25  is  too  uncertain  to  regard  this  as  undeniable  ;  nor,  since  Jame^ 
Judas,  Simon  are  among  the  very  commonest  of  Jewish  names,  does  this  in  any  way  affect  the  question 
of  the  "  Brethren  of  Jesus."  , 

2  This  goes  against  Dr.  Donaldson's  conjecture  that  both  Philip  and  Nathanael  were  sons  of  Tolmai, 
and  brothers.  Dr.  Donaldson  also  argues  that  Thomas  was  a  twin-brother  of  Matthew,  and  was  originally 
called  Jude  ;  and  that  Jude  was  the  son  of  James  the  Less,  and  therefore  grandson  of  Alphaeus.  Some 
legends  make  Thomas  a  twin-brother  of  James. 

3  James  should  rather  be  called  "the  Little"  than  "the  Less."  The  Greek  means  "the  short  of 
stature"  ;  moreover,  James  the  son  of  Zebedee  is  never  called  the  Great. 


i88 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


brother']  of  James,  and  Simon  Zelotes,  are  almost  totally  unknown. 
The  very  personality  of  James  and  Jude  is  involved  in  numerous 
and  difficult  problems,  caused  by  the  extreme  frequency  of  those 
names  among  the  Jews.  Whether  they  are  the  authors  of  the  two  Catholic 
Epistles,  is  a  question  which,  perhaps,  will  never  be  determined.  Nor  is 
anything  of  individual  interest  recorded  about  them  in  the  Gospels,  if  we 
except  the  single  question  of  "Judas,  not  Iscariot,"  which  is  mentioned  by 
St.  John."  Simon  is  only  known  by  his  surnames  of  Zelotes,  "  the  Zealot,"  or 
"  the  Canaanite " — names  which  are  identical  in  meaning,  and  which  marV 
him  out  as  having  once  belonged  to  the  wild  and  furious  followers  o 
Judas  of  Giscala.3  The  Greek  names  of  Philip  and  Andrew,  together 
with  the  fact  that  it  was  to  Philip  that  the  Greeks  applied  who  wished 
for  an  interview  with  our  Lord,  and  his  reference  of  the  request  to 
Andrew,  may  possibly  point  to  some  connection  on  their  part  with  the 
Hellenists  ;  but,  besides  their  first  call,  almost  nothing  is  recorded  about 
them  ;  and  the  same  remark  applies  to  Nathanael  and  to  Matthew.  Of 
Thomas,    called    also    Didymus,    or    "  the    Twin,"  which    is   only  a  Greek 

I.  "Judas  of  James"  may  mean  "son  of  James  ;"  but  it  is  supposed  that  both  Judas  and  the  better, 
known  James  were  sons  of  Alphaeus,  as  well  as  Matthew.  Judas  is  almost  universally  believed  to  be  the 
same  as  Lebbsus  and  Thaddaeus — "  the  three-named  disciple."  Ewaid  identifies  Lebbseus  with  Levi  (Mark 
ii.  14),  where  Origen  seems  to  have  read  "  Lebes,"  and  conjectures  that  Thaddaeus  died  early,  and  "  Judas 
of  James "  was  appointed  in  his  place.  Clemens  of  Alexandria  certainly  distinguishes  between 
"  Matthew  "  and  "  Levi."  But  the  whole  subject  is  involved  in  almost  incredible  obscurity.  The  lists  of 
the  Apostles  as  given  by  the  three  Evangelists  and  in  the  Acts  are  as  foilows  ; — 


Matt.  x.  2 — 4, 

1.  Simon. 

2.  Andrew. 

3.  James. 

4.  John. 

5.  Philip. 

6.  Bartholomew. 

7.  Thomas. 

8.  Matthew. 

9.  James  of  Alphaeus. 
ID.  Lebbaeus. 

11.  Simon  6  Kavava4<MT. 

12.  Judas  Iscariot. 
J.  John  xiv.  22. 

J,  The  true  reading  of  Matt.  x.  4 ;  Mark  iii.  18  is  Kananaios,  and  the  form  of  the  word  indicates  the 
iiT«iwbjii'  of  a  sect.  "  Those  are  called  Zealots  among  the  Jews  who  are  guardians  of  the  Law."  Nice- 
phorus  says  that  he  derived  the  name  "  because  of  his  fiery  zeal  towards  his  teacher."  "  Zealots,  for  that 
was  the  nwme  they  went  by,  as  if  they  were  zealous  in  good  deeds,  and  not  rather  zealous  in  the  worst." 
They  took  Phinehas  as  their  t)-pe  (Numb.  xxv.  11 — 13).  Bruce  happily  remarks  that  the  choice  of  an  ex- 
Zealot  as  an  Ajx)stle,  giving  grounds  for  political  suspicion,  is  another  sign  of  Christ's  disregard  of  mere 
prudential  wisddni.  Christ  wished  the  Apostles  to  be  the  type  and  germ  of  the  Church  ;  and  therefore  we 
find  it  in  a  union  or  »pposites — the  tax-gatherer  Matthew,  and  the  tax-hater  Simon — the  unpatriotic  Jew 
who  served  the  alien,  and  the  patriot  who  strove  for  emancipation. 


Mark  iii.  16 — 19. 
Simon. 
James. 
John. 
Andrew. 
Philip. 

Bartholomew. 
Matthew. 
Thomas. 

James  of  Alphaeus. 
Thaddaeus. 
Simon  6  KavavaZotf. 
Judas  Iscariot. 


Luke  vi.  14 — 16. 
Simon. 
Andrew. 
James. 
John. 
Philip. 

Bartholomew. 
Matthew. 
Thomas. 

James  of  Alphaeus. 
Simon  Zelotes. 
Jude  of  James. 
Judas  Iscariot. 


Acts  i.  13. 
Peter. 
James. 
John. 
Andrew. 
Philip. 
Thomas. 
Bartholomew. 
Matthew. 

James  of  Alphxua. 
Simon  Zelotes. 
Jude  of  James. 


THE  TWELVE,   AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  189 

version  of  his  Hebrew  name,  we  catch  several  interesting  glimpses,  which 
show  a  well-marlced  character,  naive  and  simple,  but  at  the  same  time 
ardent  and  generous  ;  ready  to  die,  yet  slow  to  believe.  Of  Judas,  the 
man  of  Kerioth,  perhaps  the  only  Jew  in  the  Apostolic  band,  we  shall 
have  sad  occasion  to  speak  hereafter ;  and  throughout  the  Gospels  he  is 
often  branded  by  the  fatal  epitaph,  so  terrible  in  its  very  simplicity, 
"Judas  Iscariot,  who  also  betrayed   Him." 

James,  John,  and  Peter  belonged  to  the  innermost  circle — the  inXexrobv 
eKXexrorepot — of  our  Lord's  associates  and  friends.'  They  alone  were  ad- 
mitted into  His  presence  when  He  raised  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  and  at 
His  transfiguration,  and  during  His  agony  in  the  garden.  Of  James  we 
know  nothing  further  except  that  to  him  was  granted  the  high  honor  of 
being  the  first  martyr  in  the  Apostolic  band.  He  and  his  brother  John 
seem,  although  they  were  fishermen,  to  have  been  in  easier  circum- 
stances than  their  associates.  Zebedee,  their  father,  not  only  had  his  own 
boat,  but  also  his  own  hired  servants  ;  and  John  mentions  incidentally 
in  his  Gospel  that  he  "was  known  to  the  high  priest."'  We  have 
already  noticed  the  most  improbable  conjecture  that  he  resided  much  at 
Jerusalem,  and  there  managed  the  importing  of  the  fish  which  were  sent 
thither  from  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  We  should  thus  be  able  to  account  for 
his  more  intimate  knowledge  of  those  many  incidents  of  our  Lord's 
ministry  in  Judea  which  have  been  entirely  omitted  by  th^  other 
Evangelists. 

St.  John  and  St.  Peter— the  one  the  symbol  of  the  contemplative, 
the  other  of  the  practical  life — are  undoubtedly  the  grandest  and  most 
attractive  figures  in  that  Apostolic  band.  The  character  of  St.  John  has 
been  often  mistaken.  Filled  as  he  was  with  a  most  divine  tenderness — 
realizing  as  he  did  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  of  the  Apostles  the  full 
depth  and  significance  of  our  Lord's  .new  commandment — rich  as  his 
Epistles  and  his  Gospel  are  with  a  meditative  and  absorbing  reverence — 
dear  as  he  has  ever  been  in  consequence  to  the  heart  of  the  mystic  and 
the  saint — yet  he  was  something  {definitely  far  removed  from  that  effeminate 

1  I  have  already  mentioned  the  conjecture  derived  from  John  xix.  25,  that  Salome  was  a  sister  of  the 
Virgin.  But  if  the  sons  of  Zebedee  were  the  first  cousins  of  Jesus,  it  would  be  strange  that  no  hint  or  tra- 
dition of  the  fact  should  have  been  preserved.  Zebedee  probably  died  shortly  after  their  final  call  to  the 
Apostolate,  as  we  hear  no  more  of  him. 

2  The  story  of  his  wearing  a  miter  (Exod.  xxix.  6)  at  Ephesus,  as  though  he  had  himself  been  of 
priestly  race,  sounds  very  apocryphal.  Yet  it  is  strange  that  such  a  story  should  have  been  inrenteid, 
especially  as  we  find  the  same  thing  asserted  of  James  the  Just,  "  the  Lord's  brother."  Perhaps  in  this  in- 
stance, as  in  others,  a  symbolic  allusion  has  been  too  literally  interpreted  as  a  fact. 


igo  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

pietist  that  has  furnished  the  usual  type  under  which  he  has  been 
represented.  The  name  Boanerges,  or  "  Sons  of  Thunder,"  which  he 
shared  with  his  brother  James,  their  joint  petition  for  precedence  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  their  passionate  request  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven 
on  the  offending  village  of  the  Samaritans,'  the  burning  energy  of  the 
patois  in  which  the  Apocalypse  is  written,  the  impetuous  horror  with 
which,  according  to  tradition,  St.  John  recoiled  from  the  presence  of  the 
heretic  Cerinthus,  all  show  that  in  him  was  the  spirit  of  the  eagle,  which, 
rather  than  the  dove,  has  been  his  immemorial  symbol.''  And  since  zeal 
and  enthusiasm,  dead  as  they  are,  and  scorned  in  these  days  by  an  effete 
and  comfortable  religionism,  yet  have  ever  been  indispensable  instruments 
in  spreading  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  doubtless  it  was  the  existence  of 
these  elements  in  his  character,  side  by  side  with  tenderness  and  devo- 
tion, which  endeared  him  so  greatly  to  his  Master,  and  made  him  the 
"disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."  The  depth  and  power  of  his  imagination, 
the  rare  combination  of  contemplativeness  and  passion,  of  strength  and 
sweetness,  in  the  same  soul — the  perfect  faith  which  inspired  his  devo- 
tion, and  the  perfect  love  which  precluded  fear — these  were  the  gifts  and 
graces  which  rendered  him  worthy  of  leaning  his  young  head  on  the 
bosom  of  his  Lord. 

Nor  is  his  friend  St.  Peter  a  less  interesting  study.  We  shall  have 
many  ^importunities  of  observing  the  generous,  impetuous,  wavering,  noble, 
timid,  impulses  of  his  thoroughly  human  but  most  lovable  disposition. 
Let  the  brief  but  vivid  summary  of  another  now  suffice.  "  It  would  be 
hard  to  tell,"  says  Dr.  Hamilton,  "whether  most  of  his  fervor  flowed 
through  the  outlet  of  adoration  or  activity.  His  full  heart  put  force  and 
promptitude  into  every  movement.  Is  his  Master  encompassed  by  fierce 
ruffians  ? — Peter's  ardor  flashes  in  his  ready  sword,  and  converts  the  Gali- 
lean boatman  into  the  soldier  jnstantaneous.  Is  there  a  rumor  of  a 
resurrection  from  Joseph's  tomb? — John's  nimbler  foot  distances  his  old 
friend  ;  but  Peter's  eagerness  outruns  the  serene  love  of  John,  and  past 
the  gazing  disciple  he  rushes  breathless  into  the  vacant  sephulcher.  Is 
the  risen  Saviour  on  the  strand  ? — his  comrades  secure  the  net,  and  turns 
the  vessel's  head  for  shore ;  but  Peter  plunges  over  the  vessel's  side,  and 
struggling  through  the  waves,  in  his  dripping  coat  falls  down  at  his 
Master's  feet.     Does  Jesus  say,  'Bring  of  the  fish  ye  have  caught?' — ere 

1  Luke  ix.  54. 

2  The  same  spirit  appears  in  Luke  ix.  49 ;  Rev.  xxii.  18  ;  2  John  g,  10. 


THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  191 

any  one  could  anticipate  the  word,  Peter's  brawny  arm  is  lugging  the  welter- 
ing net  with  its  glittering  spoil  ashore,  and  every  eager  movement  unwit- 
tingly is  answering  beforehand  the  question  of  his  Lord,  '  Simon,  lovest 
thou  me?'  And  that  fervor  is  the  best,  which,  like  Peter's,  and  as  oc- 
casion requires,  can  ascend  in  ecstatic  ascriptions  of  adoration  and  praise, 
or  follow  Christ  to  prison  and  to  death  ;  which  can  concentrate  itself  on 
feats  of  heroic  devotion,  or  distribute  itself  in  the  affectionate  assiduities 
of  a  miscellaneous  industry."' 

Such  were  the  chief  of  the  Apostles  whom  their  Lord  united  into  one 
band  as  He  sat  on  the  green  summit  of  Kurn  Hattin.  We  may  suppose 
that  on  one  of  those  two  peaks  He  had  passed  the  night  in  prayer,  and 
had  there  been  joined  by  His  disciples  at  the  early  dawn.  By  what 
external  symbol,  if  by  any,  our  Lord  ratified  this  first  great  ordination  to 
the  Apostolate  we  do  not  know;  but  undoubtedly  the  present  choice  was 
regarded  as  formal  and  as  final.  Henceforth  there  was  to  be  no  return 
to  the  fisher's  boat  or  the  publican's  booth  as  a  source  of  sustenance  ;  but 
the  disciples  were  to  share  the  wandering  missions,  the  evangelic  labors, 
the  scant  meal  and  uncertain  home,  which  marked  even  the  happiest  period 
of  the  ministry  of  their  Lord.  They  were  to  be  weary  with  Him  under 
the  burning  noonday,  and  to  sleep,  as  He  did,  under  the  starry  sky. 

And  while  the  choice  was  being  made,  a  vast  promiscuous  multitude 
had  begun  to  gather.  Not  only  from  the  densely-populated  shores  of 
the  Sea  of  Galilee,  but  even  from  Judea  and  Jerusalem— nay,  even  from 
the  distant  sea-coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon — they  had  crowded  to  touch 
His  person  and  hear  His  words.'  From  the  peak  He  descended  to  the 
flat  summit  of  the  hilM  and  first  of  all  occupied  Himself  with  the  physical 
wants  of  those  an.xious  hearers,  healing  their  diseases,  and  dispossessing 
the  unclean  spirits  of  the  souls  which  they  had  seized.  And  then,  when 
the  multitude  were  seated  in  calm  and  serious  attention  on  the  grassy 
sides  of    that    lovely    natural    amphitheater.  He    raised    His    eyes,^    which 

1  Dr.  Hamilton,  Life  in  Earnest,  p.  So. 

2  Luke  vi.  17—19.  Assuming,  with  little  or  no  hesitation,  that  St.  Luke  intends  to  record  the  same 
great  discourse  as  that  given  by  St.  Matthew,  I  have  here,  as  in  so  many  other  places,  combined  the 
separate  touches  in  the  twofold  narrative.  The  apparent  differences  are  easily  accounted  for  by  any 
reasonable  theory  of  the  position  of  the  Evangelists.  At  the  same  time  I  see  no  objection  whatever  to  the 
supposition  that  our  Lord  may  have  repeated  parts  of  His  teaching  at  different  times  and  places,  and  to 
different  audiences  ;  or  that  St.  Matthew  has  combined  and  summarized  not  one  but  many  sermons  deliv- 
ered on  the  Galilean  hills. 

3  The  '■  level  spot "  of  Luke  vi.  17,  which  is  too  briefly  rendered  "  the  plain  "  in  the  English  Version. 
Cf.  Isa.  xiii.  2,  LXX. 

4  Luke  vi.  20. 


192  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

had,  perhaps,  been  bent  downwards  for  a  few  moments  of  inward  prayer, 
and  opening  His  mouth,'  deHvered  primarily  to  His  disciples,  but  intend- 
ing through  them  to  address  the  multitude,  that  memorable  discourse 
which  will  be  known  for  ever  as  "the  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 

The  most  careless  reader  has  probably  been  struck  with  the  contrast 
between  the  delivery  of  this  sermon  and  the  delivery  of  the  Law  on 
Sinai.  We  think  of  that  as  a  "  fiery  law,"  whose  promulgation  is  sur- 
rounded by  the  imagery  of  thunders,  and  lightnings,  and  the  voice  of  the 
trumpet  sounding  long  and  waxing  louder  and  louder.  We  think  of  this 
as  flowing  forth  in  divinest  music  amid  all  the  calm  and  loveliness  of  the 
clear  and  quiet  dawn.  That  came  dreadfully  to  the  startled  conscience 
from  an  Unseen  Presence,  shrouded  by  wreathing  clouds,  and  destroying 
fire,  and  eddying  smoke  ;  this  was  uttered  by  a  sweet  human  voice  that 
moved  the  heart  most  gently  in  words  of  peace.  That  was  delivered  on 
the  desolate  and  storm-rent  hill  which  seems  with  its  red  granite  crags 
to  threaten  the  scorching  wilderness  ;  this  on  the  flowery  grass  of  the 
green  hill-side  which  slopes  down  to  the  silver  lake.  That  shook  the 
heart  with  terror  and  agitation  ;  this  soothed  it  with  peace  and  love. 
And  yet  the  New  Commandments  of  the  Mount  of  Beatitudes  were  not 
meant  to  abrogate,  but  rather  to  complete,  the  Law  which  was  spoken 
from  Sinai  to  them  of  old.  That  Law  was  founded  on  the  eternal  dis- 
tinctions of  right  and  wrong — distinctions  strong  and  irremovable  as  the 
granite  bases  of  the  world.  Easier  would  it  be  to  sweep  away  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,  than  destroy  the  least  letter,  one  yod — or  the  least 
point  of  a  letter,  one  projecting  horn — of  that  code  which  contains  the 
very  principles  of  all  moral  life.  Jesus  warned  them  that  He  came,  not 
to  abolish  that  Law,  but  to  obey  and  to  fulfill ;  while  at  the  same  time 
He  taught  that  this  obedience  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Levitical 
scrupulosity  of  a  superstitious  adherence  to  the  letter,  but  was  rather  a 
surrender  of  the  heart  and  will  to  the  innermost  meaning  and  spirit 
which  the  commands  involved.  He  fulfilled  that  olden  Law  by  perfectly 
keeping  it,  and  by  imparting  a  power  to  keep  it  to  all  who  believe  in 
Him,  even  though  He  made  its  cogency  so  far  more  universal  and 
profound." 

The  sermon  began  with  the  word  "  blessed,"  and  with  an  octave  of 
beatitudes.      But  it  was  a  new  revelation  of  beatitude.     The  people  were 

1  Matt.  V.  2.     The  expression  marks  the  solemnity  and  importance  of  the  discourse. 

2  See  the  beautiful  remarks  of  St.  Augustine,  quoted  in  Archbishop  Trench's  &fOTtfK(»K //«y)/oa«A  p.  186. 


TlIK    Willi  AV'^    SOM    RESTOKKD    To    LIFE.  — Luke  vii.    14- 


THE    SEKMUN    ON    THl, 


THE  TWELVE,   AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  193 

expecting  a  Messiah  who  should  break  the  yoke  off  their  necks — a  king 
clothed  in  earthly  splendor,  and  manifested  in  the  pomp  of  victory  and 
vengeance.  Their  minds  were  haunted  with  legendary  prophecies,  as  to 
how  He  should  stand  on  the  shore  of  Joppa,  and  bid  the  sea  pour  out 
its  pearls  and  treasure  at  His  feet  ;  how  He  should  clothe  them  with 
jewels  and  scarlet,  and  feed  them  with  even  a  sweeter  manna  than  the 
wilderness  had  known.  But  Christ  reveals  to  them  another  King,  an- 
other happiness — the  riches  of  poverty,  the  royalty  of  meekness,  the  high 
beatitudes  of  sorrow  and  persecution.  And  this  new  Law,  which  should 
not  only  command  but  also  aid,  was  to  be  set  forth  in  beneficent  mani- 
festation—at once  as  salt  to  preserve  the  world  from  corruption,  and  as 
a  light  to  guide  it  in  the  darkness.  And  then  follows  a  comparison  of 
the  new  Law  of  mercy  with  the  old  Law  of  threatening;  the  old  was 
transitory,  this  permanent  ;  the  old  was  a  type  and  shadow,  the  new  a 
fulfillment  and  completion  ;  the  old  demanded  obedience  in  outward  action, 
the  new  was  to  permeate  the  thoughts ;  the  old  contained  the  rule  of 
conduct,  the  new  the  secret  of  obedience.  The  command,  "Thou  shalt 
not  murder,"  was  henceforth  extended  to  angry  words  and  feelings  of 
hatred.  The  germ  of  adultery  was  shown  to  be  involved  in  a  lascivious 
look.  The  prohibition  of  perjury  was  extended  to  every  vain  and  un- 
necessary oath.  The  law  of  equivalent  revenge  was  superseded  by  a  law 
of  absolute  self-abnegation.  The  love  due  to  our  neighbor  was  extended 
also  to  our  enemy.'  Henceforth  the  children  of  the  kingdom  were  to 
aim  at  nothing  less  than  this — namely,  to  be  perfect,  as  their  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect. 

And  the  new  life  which  was  to  issue  from  this  new  Law  was  to  be 
contrasted  in  all  respects  with  that  routine  of  exaggerated  scruples  and 
Pharisaic  formalism  which  had  hitherto  been  regarded  as  the  highest  type 
of  a  religious  conversation.  Alms  were  to  be  given,  not  with  noisy 
ostentation,  but  in  modest  secrecy.^     Prayers  were  to  be  uttered,  not  with 

1  Matt.  V.  43,  "  And  hate  thine  enemy,"  has  been  severely  criticized  by  later  Jews  as  a  misrepresenta- 
tion of  the  Mosaic  Law.  See,  however,  Deut.  xxiii.  6  ;  vii.  2.  And  although  these  precepts  were  of  special 
significance,  certainly  many  of  the  Rabbis,  including  Shammai  himself,  had  made  use  of  the  Mosaic  Law 
to  justify  the  most  violent  national  and  religious  hatred.  He  quotes,  among  other  passages  from  the  Tal- 
mud, "Do  not  show  kindness  or  pity  to  Gentiles."  "The  Mishna,"  says  Gfrorer,  "is  full  of  such 
passages."  ^ 

2  There  is  no  trace  in  the  Talmud  or  elsewhere  that  it  was  a  practice  of  the  Pharisees  to  send  a  trum- 
peter before  them  when  they  distributed  their  alms.  The  expression  "do  not  sound  a  trumpet  before 
thee"  is  merely  a  graphic  touch  for  "  do  not  do  it  publicly  and  ostentatiously  "  (cf.  Numb.  x.  3  ;  Ps.  Ixxxi 
3  ;  Joel  ii.  15,  &c.).  Mr.  Shore,  in  the  Bible  Educator,  approves  of  SchSttgen's  conjecture,  which  connect* 
it  with  the  trumpet-shaped  openings  of  the  alms-boxes  in  the  Temple  treasury  {Neh.   xii.  41)  ;  but  surely 

13 


194  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

hypocritic  publicity,  but  in  holy  solitude.  Fasting  was  to  be  exercised, 
not  as  a  belauding  virtue,  but  as  a  private  self-denial.  And  all  these 
acts  of  devotion  were  to  be  offered  with  sole  reference  to  the  love  of 
God,  in  a  simplicity  which  sought  no  earthly  reward,  but  which  stored 
up  for  itself  a  heavenly  and  incorruptible  treasure.  And  the  service  to 
be  sincere  must  be  entire  and  undistracted.  The  cares  and  the  anxieties 
of  life  were  not  to  divert  its  earnestness  or  to  trouble  its  repose.  The 
God  to  whom  it  was  directed  was  a  Father  also,  and  He  who  ever  feeds 
the  fowls  of  the  air,  which  neither  sow  nor  reap,  and  clothes  in  their 
more  than  regal  loveliness  the  flowers  of  the  field,'  would  not  fail  to 
clothe  and  feed,  and  that  without  any  need  for  their  own  toilsome  anxiety, 
the  children  who  seek  His  righteousness  as  their  first  desire. 

And  what  should  be  the  basis  of  such  service  ?  The  self-examination 
which  issues  in  a  gentleness  which  will  not  condemn,  in  a  charity  that 
cannot  believe,  in  an  ignorance  that  will  not  know,  the  sins  of  others  ; 
the  reserve  which  will  not  waste  or  degrade  things  holy  ;  the  faith  which 
seeks  for  strength  from  above,  and  knows  that,  seeking  rightly,  it  shall 
obtain  ;  the  self-denial  which,  in  the  desire  to  increase  God's  glory  and 
man's  happiness,  sees  the  sole  guide  of  its  actions  towards  all  the  world. 

The  gate  was  straight,  the  path  narrow,  but  it  led  to  life ;  by  the 
lives  and  actions  of  those  who  professed  to  live  by  it,  and  point  it  out, 
they  were  to  judge  whether  their  doctrine  was  true  or  false  ;  without 
this  neither  words  of  orthodoxy  would  avail,  nor  works  of  power. 

.  Lastly,  He  warned  them  that  he  who  heard  these  sayings  and  did 
them  was  like  a  wise  man  who  built  a  house  with  foundations  dug  deeply 
into  the  living  rock,  whose  house,  because  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock, 
stood  unshaken  amid  the  vehement  beating  of  storm  and  surge  :  but  he 
who  heard  and  did  them  not  was  likened  "  unto  a  foolish  man  that  built 
his  house  upon  the  sand  ;  and  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came, 
and  the  winds  blew  and  beat  upon  that  house  :  and  it  fell,  and  great 
was  the  fall  of  it."" 

"  do  not  trumpet"  could  never  mean  "  do  not  make  your  shekels  rattle  in  those  trumpet-shaped  orifices." 
Grotius  connects  the  expression  with  Amos  iv.  5  ;  and  Rashi  with  a  supposed  custom  of  blowing  the 
trumpet  during  libations  in  the  Temple. 

1  The  lilies  to  which  Christ  alluded  (Matt.  vi.  28)  are  either  flowers  generally,  or,  perhaps,  the  scarlet 
anemone,  or  the  Huleh  lily— a  beautiful  flower  which  is  found  wild  in  this  neighborhood.  In  verse  27,  the 
reading  should  be  "  age,"  not  "  stature,"  as  in  John  ix.  21  ;  Eph.  iv.  13  ;  Heb.  xi.  11. 

2  With  this  simile  compare  Ezek.  xiii.  11;  Job  xxvii.  18.  For  an  admirable  sketch  of  the  topics 
handled  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  see  Westcott's  Introd.,  p.  358.  In  outline  he  arranges  it  thus  : — "  i. 
The  Citizens  of  the  Kingdom  (v.  i — 16) — their  character  absolutely  (3 — 6) ;  relatively  (7—12) ;  and  their  \n- 
fluence  (13— leX      2.   The  New  Law  (17 — 48)  as  the  fulfillment  of   the  Old,  generally  (17 — 20)  and  specially 


THE  TWELVE,   AND  THE  SERMON   ON   THE  MOUNT.  195 

Such  in  barest  and  most  colorless  oLitline  are  the  topics  of  that 
mighty  sermon  ;  nor  is  it  marvelous  that  tlie\- who  heard  it  "were  aston- 
ished at  the  doctrine."  Their  main  astonislinient  was  that  He  taught 
"as  one  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  .Scribes."'  The  teaching  of 
their  Scribes  was  narrow,  dogmatic,  material  ;  it  was  cold  in  manner, 
frivolous  in  matter,  second-hand,  and  iterati\f--  in  its  very  essence;  withi, 
no  freshness  in  it,  no  force,  no  fire ;  ser\-ile  to  all  authority,  opposed  to 
all  independence ;  at  once  erudite  and  foolish,  at  once  contemptuous  and 
mean ;  never  passing  a  hair's  breadth  beyond  the  carefully-watched  bound- 
ary line  of  commentary  and  precedent;  full  of  balanced  inference  and 
orthodox  hesitancy,  and  impossible  literalism;  intricate  with  legal  petti- 
ness and  labyrinthine  system ;  elevating  mere  memory  above  genius,  and 
repetition  above  originality;    concerned  only  about  Priests  and  Pharisees, 

(murder,  adultery,  perjury,  revenge,  exclusiveness,  21 — 4S).  3.  The  Mew  Life  (vi. — vii.  27)  ;  acts  of  devo- 
tion (vi.  1 — 18),  aims  (19 — 34),  conduct  (vii.  i — 12),  dangers  (vii.  13  — .•3).  4.  The  Great  Contrast."  Many 
Rabbinical  parables— always  inferior  in  beauty,  in  point,  in  breadth,  and  in  spirituality^have  been  com- 
pared with  separate  clauses  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Since  even  the  Mishna  was  not  committed  to 
writing  till  the  second  century,  and  since  it  is  therefore  impossible  to  estimate  the  diffusion  of  Christian 
thought  even  among  hostile  Rabbinic  writers,  nothing  conclusive  can  be  assured  from  these  parallels.  It 
is  a  great  mistake,  as  a  friend  observes,  to  suppose  that  the  world  is  made  in  water-tight  compartments, 
even  when  the  divisions  seem  most  absolute.  In  fact,  hostility  may  be  less  a  barrier  than  a  channel,  at 
least  when  accompanied  by  competition.  Protestantism  has  reatied  upon  Romanism,  but  nothing  like  to' 
the  extent  that  Christianity  reacted  upon  Judaism.  But  even  if  i>  =  suppose  the  Rabbinic  parallels,  such  as 
they  are,  to  be  independent  and  precedent,  yet,  considering  the  fact  that  high  moral  truths  have  been 
uttered  even  by  pagans,  from  the  earliest  times — and  considering  that  all  discovery  of  moral  truths  is  due 
to  that  revealing  Spirit  which  is  called  in  Scripture  "  the  candle  of  the  Lord  "  (Prov.  xx.  27) — the  question  of 
"  originality,"  to  which  some  writers  attach  so  much  importance,  seems  to  be  futile,  and  devoid  of  all  sig- 
nificance. I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  adduce  these  parallels,  except  in  rare  and  interesting  cases. 
The  attack  on  the  score  of  its  not  being  "  original"  is  the  one  of  all  others  from  which  Christianity  has 
least  to  fear.  The  question  of  mere  literary  precedence  in  the  utterance  or  illustration  of  a  moral  truth  is 
one  which  has  no  importance  for  mankind.  A  truth  so  enunciated  that  it  merely  lies  "  in  the  lumber-room 
of  the  memory,  side  by  side  with  the  most  exploded  errors,"  is  practically  no  truth  at  all  ;  it  only  becomes 
real  when  it  is  so  taught  as  to  become  potent  among  human  motives. 

"Though  truths  in  manhood  darkly  join, 

Deep-seated  in  our  mystic  frame,  * 

We  yield  all  honor  to  the  name 
Of  Him  who  made  them  current  coin." 

I  The  Scribes  date  as  a  distinct  body  from  the  period  of  Ezra.  The  name  is  derived  from  sepher,  or 
"book,"  and  means  "  Scripturalists  " — those  who  explained  and  copied  the  Law;  not  ixova  saphav,  "to 
count,"  because  they  itokmW all  the  letters  of  it.  Their  functions  were  to  copy,  read,  amend,  explain,  and 
protect  the  Law.  It  was  in  the  latter  capacity  that  they  invented  the  "  fences,"  which,  under  the  title  of 
"  Words  of  the  Scribes,"  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  "  tradition  of  the  elders  "  (Matt.  xv.  2  ;  Gal.  i.  14),  or 
Oral  Law  (the  Torah  slubcal pt,  or  "  Law  upon  the  lip,"  as  distinguished  from  the  Torah  skdiekciih,  or  "  Law 
which  is  in  writing"),  any  transgression  of  which  is  declared  by  the  Mishna  to  be  more  heinous  than  a 
transgression  of  the  words  of  the  Bible  {Sanhtdrin,  x.  3).  It  very  rarely  rises  above  the  level  of  a  commentary 
at  once  timid  and  fantastic.  R.  Eliezer  actually  made  it  his  boast  that  he  had  originated  nothing  ;  a:.d 
Hillel's  grand  position.  President  of  the  Sanbedrin,  was  simply  due  10  his  having  remembered  a  decision 
of  Shemaia  and  Abtalion.  "  Get  for  thyself  a  teacher,"  was  a  characteristic  gnome  of  Joshua  Ben  Perachia, 
whom  the  Talmud  calls  "  the  Teacher  of  Christ." 


196  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

in  Temple  and  synagogue,  or  school,  or  Sanhedrin,  and  mostly  occupied 
with  things  infinitely  little.  It  was  not  indeed  wholly  devoid  of  moral 
significance,  nor  is  it  impossible  to  find  here'  and  there,  among  the  dSris 
of  it,  a  noble  thought ;  but  it  was  occupied  a  thousandfold  more  with 
Levitical  minutia;  about  mint,  and  anise,  and  cummin,  and  the  length  of 
fringes,  and  the  breadth  of  phylacteries,  and  the  washing  of  cups  and 
platters,  and  the  particular  quarter  of  a  second  when  new  moons  and  Sab- 
bath-days began."  But  this  teaching  of  Jesus  was  wholly  different  in  its 
character,  and  as  much  grander  as  the  temple  of  the  morning  sky  under 
which  it  was  uttered  was  grander  than  stifling  synagogue  or  crowded 
school.  It  was  preached,  as  each  occasion  rose,  on  the  hill-side,  or  by 
the  lake,  or  on  the  roads,  or  in  the  house  of  the  Pharisee,  or  at  the  ban- 
quet of  the  Publican  ;  nor  was  it  any  sweeter  or  loftier  when  it  was  ad- 
dressed in  the  Royal  Portico  to  the  Masters  of  Israel,  than  when  its 
only  hearers  were  the  ignorant  people  whom  the  haughty  Pharisees  held 
to  be  accursed.  And  there  was  no  reserve  in  its  administration.  It 
flowed  forth  as  sweetly  and  as  lavishly  to  single  listeners  as  to  enraptured 
crowds ;  and  some  of  its  ver)'  richest  revelations  were  vouchsafed,  neither 
to  rulers  nor  to  multitudes,  but  to  the  persecuted  outcast  of  the  Jewish 
synagogue,  to  the  timid  inquirer  in  the  lonely  midnight,  and  the  frail 
woman  by  the  noon-day  well.  And  it  dealt,  not  with  scrupulous  tithes 
and  ceremonial  cleansings,  but  with  the  human  soul,  and  human  destiny, 
and  human  life — with  Hope  and  Charity,  and  Faith.  There  were  no  defi- 
nitions in  it,  or  explanations,  or  "scholastic  systems,"  or  philosophic  theo- 
rizing, or  implicated  mazes  of  difficult  and  dubious  discussion,  but  a  swift 
intuitive  insight  into  the  very  depths  of  the  human  heart — even  a 
supreme  and  daring  paradox  that,  without  being  fenced  round  with  ex- 
ceptions or  limitations,  appealed  to  the  conscience  with  its  irresistible  sim- 
plicity, and  with  an  absolute  mastery  stirred  and  dominated  over  the  heart. 
Springing  from  the  depths  of  holy  emotions,  it  thrilled  the  being  of  every 
listener  as  with  an  electric  flame.  In  a  word,  its  authority  was  the  au- 
thority of  the  Divine  Incarnate  ;    it  was  a  Voice  of  God,  speaking  in  the 

I  Any  one  who  chooses  to  take  the  trouble,  may  verify  these  assertions  for  himself.  Much  has  been 
written  lately  in  exaltation  of  the  Talmud.  Now  the  literature  to  which  the  general  name  of  Talmud  is 
given,  occupies  twelve  immense  folio  volumes  ;  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  out  of  this  vast  encyclo- 
pedia of  a  nation's  literature,  it  were  not  possible  to  quote  a  few  eloquent  passages,  some  beautiful  illus- 
trations, and  a  considerable  number  of  just  moral  sentiments  which  sometimes  rise  to  the  dignity  of  noble 
thoughts.  But  what  seems  to  me  absolutely  indisputable,  and  what  any  one  may  judge  of  for  himself,  is 
that  all  which  is  rea'.ly  valuable  in  the  Talmud  is  infinitesimally  small  compared  with  the  almost  immeasur- 
able rubbish-heaps  in  which  it  is  imbedded. 


THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  197 

utterance  of  man ;  its  austere  purity  was  yet  pervaded  with  tenderest 
sympathy,  and  its  awful  severity  with  an  unutterable  love.  It  is,  to  bor- 
row the  image  of  the  wisest  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  a  great  sea  whose 
smiling  surface  breaks  into  refreshing  ripples  at  the  feet  of  our  little 
ones,  but  into  whose  unfathomable  depths  the  wisest  may  gaze  with  the 
shudder  of  amazement  and  the  thrill   of  love. 

And  we,  who  can  compare  Christ's  teaching — the  teaching  of  One 
whom  some  would  represent  to  have  been  no  more  than  the  carpenter  of 
Nazareth — with  all  that  the  world  has  of  best  and  greatest  in  Philosophy 
and  Eloquence  and  Song,  must  not  we  too  add,  with  yet  deeper  em- 
phasis, that  teaching  as  One  having  authority.  He  spake  as  never  man 
spake?  Other  teachers  have  by  God's  grace  uttered  words  of  wisdom, 
but  to  which  of  them  has  it  been  granted  to  regenerate  mankind  ?  What 
would  the  world  be  now  if  it  had  nothing  better  than  the  dry  aphorisms 
and  cautious  hesitations  of  Confucius,  or  the  dubious  principles  and 
dangerous  concessions  of  Plato  ?  Would  humanity  have  made  the  vast 
moral  advance  which  it  has  made,  if  no  great  Prophet  from  on  High 
had  furnished  it  with  anything  better  than  Sakya  Mouni's  dreary  hope 
of  a  nirvdna,  to  be  won  by  unnatural  asceticism,  or  than  Mahomet's 
cynical  sanction  of  polygamy  and  despotism  ?  Christianity  may  have  de- 
generated in  many  respects  from  its  old  and  great  ideal ;  it  may  have 
lost  something  of  its  virgin  purity — the  struggling  and  divided  Church  of 
to-day  may  have  waned,  during  these  long  centuries,  from  the  splendor 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  descending  out  of  heaven  from  God  :  but  is 
Christendom  no  better  than  what  Greece  became,  and  what  Turkey  and 
Arabia  and  China  are?  Does  Christianity  wither  the  nations  which  have 
accepted  it  with  the  atrophy  of  Buddhism,  or  the  blight  of  Islam?"  Even 
as  a  moral  system — though  it  is  infinitely  more  than  a  moral  system — 
we  do  not  concede  that  Christianity  is  unoriginal  ;  and  we  besides  main- 
tain that  no  faith  has  ever  been  able  like  it  to  sway  the  affections  and 
hearts  of  men.  Other  religions  are  demonstrably  defective  and  errone- 
ous ;  ours  has  never  been  proved  to  be  otherwise  than  perfect  and  en- 
tire ;  other  systems  were  esoteric  and  exclusive,  ours  simple  and  universal ; 
others  temporary  and  for  the  few,  ours  eternal  and  for  the  race.  K'ung 
Foo-tze,  Sakya  Mouni,  Mahomet,  could  not  even  conceive  the  ideal  of  a 
society  without  falling  into  miserable  error ;  Christ  established  the  reality 

I  A  blight  certainly  in  Turkey,  Syria,  Arabia,  and  Egypt,  and  surely  everywhere  non-progressive  ;  but 
Islam  being,  as  it  is,  a  professed  modification  of  Judaism  and  Christianity,  can  hardly  be  counted  an  inde- 
pendent religion,  and  is  indeed  a  degeneracy  even  from  Judaism. 


igS  Tin:  prince  of  GLORY. 

of  an  eternal  and  glorious  kingdom — whose  theory  for  all,  whose  history 
in  the  world,  prove  it  to  br  indeed  what  it  was  from  the  first  proclaimed 
to  be — the   Kingdom  of   Heaven,  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

And  yet  how  exquisitely  and  freshly  simple  is  the  actual  language 
of  Christ  compared  with  all  other  teaching  that  has  ever  gained  the 
ear  of  the  world  !  There  is  no  science  in  it,  no  art,  no  pomp  of 
demonstration,  no  carefulness  of  toil,  no  trick  of  rhetoricians,  no  wisdom 
of  the  schools.  Straight  as  an  arrow  to  the  mark  His  precepts  pierce 
to  the  very  depths  of  the  soul  and  spirit.  All  is  short,  clear,  precise, 
full  of  holiness,  full  of  tlu;  common  images  of  daily  life.  There  is 
scarcely  a  scene  or  object  familiar  to  the  Galilee  of  that  day,  which 
Jesus  did  not  use  as  a  moral  illustration  of  some  glorious  promise  or 
moral  law.  He  spoke  of  green  fields,  and  springing  flowers,  and  the 
budding  of  the  vernal  trees  ;  of  the  red  or  lowering  sky  ;  of  sunrise  and 
sunset;  of  wind  and  rain:  of  night  and  storm;  of  clouds  and  lightning; 
of  stream  and  river;  of  stars  and  lamps;  of  fire  and  salt;  of  quivering 
bulrushes  and  burning  weeds;  of  rent  garments  and  bursting  wine-skins; 
of  eggs  and  serpents  ;  of  pearls  and  pieces  of  money ;  of  nets  and  fish. 
Wine  and  wheat,  corn  and  oil,  stewards  and  gardeners,  laborers  and 
employers,  kings  and  slicpherds,  travelers  and  fathers  of  families, 
courtiers  in  soft  clothing  and  brides  in  nuptial  robes — all  these  are 
found  in  His  discourses.  He  knew  all  life,  and  had  gazed  on  it  with  a 
kindly  as  well  as  a  kingly  grace.  He  could  sympathize  with  its  joys  no 
less  than  He  could  heal  its  sorrows,  and  the  eyes  that  were  so  often 
suffused  with  tears  as  the\-  saw  the  sufferings  of  earth's  mourners  beside 
the  bed  of  death,  had  shone  also  with  a  kindlier  glow  as  they  watched 
the  games  of  earth's  happy  little  ones  in  the  green  fields  and  busy 
streets.  ' 

I  Few  have  spoken  more  beautifully  of  our  Lord's  teaching  in  these  respects  than  Bishop  Dupanloup, 
where  the  main  thought  of  the  last  paragraph  will  be  found  at  much  greater  length.  Much  that  I  have 
said  in  this  chapter  is  beautifully  illustrated  in  a  little  poem  by  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  part  of  which  (if  it 
be  not  known  to  him)  the  reader  will  thank  me  for  quoting : — 

"  'Across  the  sea,  along  the  shore, 
In  numbers  ever  more  and  more, 
From  lonely  hut  and  busy  town, 
The  valley  through,  the  mountain  dovra. 
What  was  it  ye  went  out  to  see, 
Ye  silly  folk  of  Galilee? 
The  reed  that  in  the  wind  doth  shake  ? 
The  weed  that  washes  in  the  lake  ? 


THE  TWELVE,  AND  THE  SERMON  ON  THE  MOUNT.  1 99 


'  A  Teacher  ?     Rather  seek  the  feet 
Of  those  who  sit  in  Moses'  seat. 
Go,  humbly  seek,  and  bow  to  them 
Far  off  in  great  Jerusalem     .... 
What  is  it  came  ye  here  to  note  ? 
A  young  Man  preaching  in  a  boat. 

A  Prophet!     Boys  and  women  weak! 

Declare — and  cease  to  rave — 
Whence  is  it  He  hath  learnt  to  speak? 

Say,  who  His  doctrine  gave? 
A  Prophet?     Prophet  wherefore  He 

Of  all  in  Israel's  tribes?' — 
He  teacheth  with  authority 

And  not  as  do  the  scriiei." 


CHAPTER     XIX. 


FURTHER    MIRACLES, 


Gils     "       U     eJls     O 


"  He  sent  forth  His  word,  and  healed  them." — Ps.  cvii.  20. 


Inauguration  of  the  Great  Doctrine  was 
immediately  followed  and  ratified  by  mighty 
signs.  Jesus  went,  says  one  of  the  Fathers, 
from  teaching  to  miracle.  "  Having  taught  as 
One  who  had  authority,  He  proceeded  to  con- 
firm that  authority  by  accordant  deeds. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  after  a 
night  of  ceaseless  prayer  under  the  open  sky, 
followed  at  early  dawn  by  the  choice  of  twelve 
Apostles,  and  then  by  a  long  address  to  them 
and  to  a  vast  promiscuous  multitude,  our  Lord 
would  have  retired  to  the  repose  which  such 
incessant  activity  required.  Such,  however,  was 
very  far  indeed  from  being  the  case,  and  the 
next  few  days,  if  we  rightly  grasp  the  sequence  of  events,  were  days  of 
continuous  and  unwearying  toil. 

When  the  Sermon  was  over,  the  immense  throng  dispersed  in  various 
directions,  and  those  whose  homes  lay  in  the  plain  of  Gennesareth  would 
doubtless  follow  Jesus  through  the  village  of  Hattin,  and  across  the 
narrow  plateau,  and  then,  after  descending  the  ravine,  would  leave 
Magdala  on  the  right,  and  pass  through   Bethsaida'  to  Capernaum. 

As  He  descended  the  mountain, ^  and  was  just  entering  one  of  the 
little  towns,*  probably  a  short  distance  in  advance  of  the  multitude,   who 

1  Matt.  viii.  i — 4  ;  Mark  i.  40 — 45  ;  Luke  v.  12 — 16. — St.  Matthew  narrates  twenty  miracles  ;  St. 
Mark,  eighteen  ;  St.  Luke,  nineteen,  and  St.  John,  seven.  The  total  number  of  miracles  related  by  the 
Evangelists  is  thirty-three. 

2  That  is,  the  ]l'estern  Bcthsaida — probably  the  pleasant  spot  on  the  lake  with  its  gently  sloping  banks, 
abundant  streams,  and  strip  of  bright  sand,  now  called  Ain  et-Tabijah. 

3  This  definite  mark  of  time  and  place  is  furnished  by  St.  Matthew  (viii.  i).  I  have  combined  with 
his  narrative  the  incidents  alluded  to  by  the  two  other  Synoptists. 

4  Luke  v.  12.     Hattin,  or  Magdala,  would  best  suit  the  conditions  mentioned. 


FURTHER  MIRACLES.  20i 

from  natural  respect  would  be  likely  to  leave  Him  undisturbed  after  His 
labors,  a  pitiable  spectacle  met  His  eyes.'  Suddenly,  with  agonies 
of  entreaty,  falling  first  on  his  knees,  then,  in  the  anguish  of  his 
heart  and  the  intensity  of  his  supplication,  prostrating  himself  upon 
his  face,  there  appeared  before  Him,  with  bare  head,  and  rent  garments, 
and  covered  lip,  a  leper — "  full  of  leprosy  "—smitten  with  the  worst  and 
fqulest  form  of  that  loathsome  and  terrible  disease.  It  must,  indeed, 
have  required  on  the  part  of  the  poor  wretch  a  stupendous  faith  to  be- 
lieve that  the  young  Prophet  of  Nazareth  was  One  who  could  heal  a 
disease  of  which  the  worst  misery  was  the  belief  that,  when  once 
thoroughly  seated  in  the  blood,  it  was  ineradicable  and  progressive. 
And  yet  the  concentrated  hope  of  a  life  broke  out  in  the  man's  impas- 
sioned prayer,  "  Lord,  if  Thou  wilt.  Thou  canst  make  me  clean." 
Prompt  as  an  echo  came  the  answer  to  his  faith,  "  I  will  :  be  thou 
clean.""  All  Christ's  miracles  are  revelations  also.  Sometimes,  when  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  required  it,  He  delayed  His  answer  to  a 
sufferer's  prayer.  But  we  are  never  told  that  there  was  a  moment's 
pause  when  a  leper  cried  to  him.  Leprosy  was  an  acknowledged  type 
of  sin,  and  Christ  would  teach  us  that  the  heartfelt  prayer  of  the  sinner 
to  be  purged  and  cleansed  is  always  met  by  instantaneous  acceptance. 
When  David,  the  type  of  all  true  penitents,  cried  with  intense  contrition, 
"  I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord,"  Nathan  could  instantly  convey  to 
him  God's  gracious  message,  "  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin  ; 
thou  shalt  not  die."^ 

Instantly  stretching  forth  His  hand,  our  Lord  touched  the  leper, 
and  he  was  cleansed. 

It  was  a  glorious  violation  of  the  letter  of  the  Law,  which  attached 
ceremonial  pollution  to  a  leper's  touch  ;  *  but  it  was  at  the  same  time  a 
glorious  illustration  of  the  spirit  of  the  Law,  which  was  that  mercy  is 
better  than  sacrifice.  The  hand  of  Jesus  was  not  polluted  by  touching 
the  leper's  body,  but    the  leper's  whole   body  was  cleansed    by  the  touch 

1  This  is  implied  in  the  words  "and  behold"  of  Luke  v.  12  ;  Matt.  viii.  2.  The  phrase  is  peculiar  to 
these  two  Evangelists,  of  whona  St.  Matthew  uses  it  twenty-three,  and  St.  Luke  sixteen  times. 

2  "  A  prompt  echo  to  the  ripe  faith  of  the  leper"  (Bengel).  The  prompt,  almost  impetuous  gladness 
and  spontaneity  of  these  miracles  contrasts  with  the  sorrow  and  delay  of  those  later  ones,  which  Jesus 
wrought  when  His  heart  had  been  utterly  saddened,  and  men's  faith  in  Him  had  already  begun  to  wane 
(cf.  Matt.  xiii.  58  ;  Mark  vi.  5).  "  He  effected  His  first  miracles  instantaneously  that  He  might  not  seem  to 
do  them  with  toil"  (BengeD. 

3  2  Sam.  xii.  13. 

4  Lev.  xiii.  26,  46 ;  Numb.  v.  2. 


202  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  that  holy  hand.      It  was  even  thus  that  He  touched  our  sinful  human 
nature,  and  yet  remained  without  spot  of  sin. 

It  was  in  the  depth  and  spontaneity  of  His  human  emotion  that  our 
Lord  had  touched  the  leper  into  health.  But  it  was  His  present  desire 
to  fulfill  the  Mosaic  Law  by  perfect  obedience  ;  and  both  in  proof  of  the 
miracle,  and  out  of  consideration  to  the  sufferer,  and  in  conformity  with 
the  Levitical  ordinance.  He  bade  the  leper  go  and  show  himself  to  the 
priest,  make  the  customary  offerings,  and  obtain  the  legal  certificate  that 
He  was  clean."  He  accompanied  the  direction  with  a  strict  and  even 
stern  injunction  to  say  not  one  word  of  it  to  any  one.'  It  appears  from 
this  that  the  suddenness  with  which  the  miracle  had  been  accomplished 
had  kept  it  secret  from  all,  except  perhaps  a  few  of  our  Lord's  immediate 
followers,  although  it  had  been  wrought  in  open  day,  and  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  a  city,  and  at  no  great  distance  from  the  following  mul- 
titudes. But  why  did  our  Lord  on  this,  and  many  other  occasions,  enjoin 
on  the  recipients  of  the  miracles  a  secrecy  which  they  so  rarely  observed  ? 
The  full  reason  perhaps  we  shall  never  know  ;  but  that  it  had  reference 
to  circumstances  of  time  and  place,  and  the  mental  condition  of  those  in 
whose  favor  the  deeds  were  wrought,  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  on  one 
occasion  at  least,  where  the  conditions  were  different.  He  even  enjoined 
a  publication  of  the  mercy  vouchsafed.^  Was  it,  as  St.  Chrysostom  con- 
jectures, to  repress  a  spirit  of  boastfulness,  and  teach  men  not  to  talk 
away  the  deep  inward  sense  of  God's  great  gifts  ?  or  was  it  to  avoid  an 
over-excitement    and     tumult    in    the    already    astonished     multitudes    of 

1  We  shall  speak  more  of  leprosy  hereafter,  when  we  consider  others  of  our  Lord's  miracles.  Per- 
haps no  conception  of  it  can  be  derived  from  any  source  more  fearfully  than  from  Lev.  xiii.,  xiv.  The 
rites  which  accompanied  the  sacerdotal  cleansin?  of  a  leper  are  described  at  length  in  Lev.  xiv.  It  was  a 
long  process,  in  two  stages.  First  the  priest  had  to  come  to  him  outside  the  camp  or  town,  to  kill  a  spar- 
row over  fresh  water,  to  dip  a  living  sparrow  with  cedar-wood,  scarlet  wool,  and  hyssop  into  the  blood- 
stained water,  to  sprinkle  the  leper  seven  times  with  this  strange  aspergillum,  and  then  let  the  living  bird 
loose,  and  pronounce  the  man  clean.  The  man  was  then  to  shave  off  his  hair,  bathe,  remain  seven  days 
oi't  of  his  house  ;  again  shave,  and  bathe,  and  return  to  the  priest,  bringing  one  lamb  for  a  trespass-ofTer- 
ing,  and  a  second  with  a  ewe-lamb  for  a  burnt  and  sin-offering  (or,  if  too  poor  to  do  this,  two  young 
pigeons),  and  fiour  and  oil  for  a  meat-offering.  Some  of  the  blood  of  the  trespass-offering,  and  some  of 
the  oil,  was  then  put,  with  certain  ceremonies,  on  the  tip  of  his  right  ear,  the  thumb  of  his  right  hand, 
and  the  great  toe  of  his  right  foot,  the  rest  of  the  oil  being  poured  upon  his  head.  He  was  then  pro- 
nounced clean.  There  could  not  well  be  any  dispute  about  the  reality  of  the  cleansing,  after  ceremonials 
so  elaborate  as  this,  which  are  the  main  topic  of  the  Mishnaic  tract  A'egaim,  in  fourteen  chapters.  In 
Delitzsch's  Durch  Krankheit  zur  Gentsimg,  the  whole  rites  are  elaborately  described. 

2  "See  that  you  tell  no  word,  to  nobody"  (Mark  i.  44).  This  probably  is  the  correct  reading.  The 
expression  is  much  stronger  than  usual  (see  xiii.  2  ;  xiv.  2).  For  other  instances  of  enjoined  secrecy  see 
Mark  i.  25,  44  (Luke  iv.  35  ;  v.  14) ;  Mark  iii.  12  (Matt.  xii.  16) ;  v.  43  (Luke  viii.  56).  It  will  be  seen  from 
this  that  such  commands  were  mainly  given  in  the  early  part  of  the  ministry. 

3  The  Gadarene  demoniac  (Mark  v.  ig;  Luke  viii.  39). 


FURTHER  MIRACLES.  203 

Galilee?'  or  was  it  that  He  might  be  regarded  by  them  in  His  true 
light — not  as  a  mighty  Wonder-worker,  not  as  a  universal  Hakim,  but  as 
a  Saviour  by  Revelation  and  by  Hope? 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  general  reasons,  it  appears  that  in  this 
case  there  must  have  been  some  reason  of  special  importance.  St. 
Mark,  reflecting  for  us  the  intense  and  vivid  impressions  of  St.  Peter, 
shows  us,  in  his  terse  but  most  graphic  narrative,  that  the  man's  dis- 
missal was  accompanied  on  our  Saviour's  part  with  some  overpowering 
emotion.  Not  only  is  the  word,  "He  straitly  charged  him"  (Mark  i. 
43),  a  word  implying  an  extreme  earnestness  and  even  vehemence  of 
look  and  gesture,  but  the  word  for  "  forthwith  sent  him  away  "  is  literally 
He  "pushed"  or  "drove  him  forth."  =  What  was  the  cause  for  this 
severely  inculcated  order,  for  this  instantaneous  dismissal?  Perhaps  it 
was  the  fact  that  by  touching  the  leper— though  the  touch  was  healing 
— He  would,  in  the  eyes  of  an  unreasoning  and  unspiritual  orthodoxy, 
be  regarded  as  ceremonially  unclean.  And  that  this  actually  did  occur 
may  be  assumed  from  the  expressly  mentioned  fact  that,  in  conseqence 
of  the  manner  in  which  this  incident  was  blazoned  abroad  by  the  cleansed 
sufferer,  "  He  could  not  openly  enter  into  a  city,  but  was  without  in 
desert  places."  ^  St.  Luke  mentions  a  similar  circumstance,  though  with- 
out giving  any  special  reason  for  it,  and  adds  that  Jesus  spent  the  time 
in  prayer.''  If,  however,  the  dissemination  of  the  leper's  story  involved 
the  necessity  for  a  short  period  of  seclusion,  it  is  clear  that  the  multitude 
paid  but  little  regard  to  this  Levitical  uncleanness,  for  even  in  the  lonely 
spot  to  which  Jesus  had  retired  they  thronged  to  Him  from  every 
quarter. 

Whether  the  healing  of  the  centurion's  servant  =  took  place  before  or 
after  this  retirement  is  uncertain  ;  but  from  the  fact  that  both  St.  Mat- 
thew and  St.   Luke    place  it  in  close  connection  with  the  Sermon  on  the 

1  As  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  beautiful  reference  to  Isa.  xlii.  in  Matt.  xii.  15—20.  No  true  Prophet 
regards  such  powers  as  being  the  real  root  of  the  matter.  At  the  best  they  are  evidential,  and  that 
mainly  to  the  immediate  witnesses. 

2  ift(}p(/ivadfievo<!  airu,  el-diua  iie^aXcv  avTov  (Mark  i.  43).  Euthymius  explains  this  word  by  "  looking 
sternly  on  him,  and  shaking  his  head  at  him."  It  is  true  that  both  these  words  occur  elsewhere  in  the 
picturesque  and  energetic  Greek  of  the  Gospels,  but  generally  in  very  strong  senses— ^.^.,  Matt.  ix.  30, 
3S  ;  Mark  i.  12;  xiv.  5;  John  xi.  33.  In  Aquila  and  Symmachus  also  the  word  is  used  of  vehement 
indignation  (Ps.  vii.  11  ;  Isa.   xvii.  13). 

3  Mark  i.  45.     "  It  was,"  says  Lange,   "  a  sort  of  Levitical  quarantine." 

4  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  St.  Luke,  more  than  the  other  Evangelists,  constantly  refers  to  the 
private  prayers  of  Jesus  (iii.  21  ;  vi.  12;  ix.  i3,  28  ;  xi.  i  ;  xxiii.  34,  46). 

5  Luke  vii.  i — 10;  Matt.  viii.  5 — 13.  The  points  of  difference  between  the  healing  of  the  nobleman's 
son  and  this  miracle  are  too  numerous  to  admit  of  our  accepting  the  opinion  of  those  who. identify  them. 


204  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Mount,  we  may  suppose  that  the  thronging  ^of  the  multitude  to  seek 
Him  even  in  desert  places,  may  have  shown  that  it  would  not  be  pos- 
sible for  Him  to  satisfy  the  scruples  of  the  Legalists  by  this  temporary 
retirement  from  human  intercourse. 

Our  Lord  had  barely  reached  the  town  of  Capernaum,  where  He 
had  fixed  His  temporary  home,  when  he  was  met  by  a  deputation  of 
Jewish  elders' — probably  the  batlantm  of  the  chief  synagogue — to  inter- 
cede with  Him  on  behalf  of  a  centurion,  whose  faithful  and  beloved  slave 
lay  in  the  agony  and  peril  of  a  paralytic  seizure.  It  might  have  seemed 
strange  that  Jewish  elders  should  take  this  amount  of  interest  in  one  who, 
whether  a  Roman  or  not,  was  certainly  a  heathen,  and  may  not  even  have 
been  a  "proselyte  of  the  gate."-  They  explained,  however,  that  not  only 
did  he  love  their  nation — a  thing  most  rare  in  a  Gentile,  for,  generally  speak- 
ing, the  Jews  were  regarded  with  singular  detestation — but  had  even,  at 
his  own  expense,  built  them  a  synagogue,  which,  although  there  must  have 
been  several  in  Capernaum,  was  sufficiently  beautiful  and  conspicuous  to 
be  called  "the  synagogue." '  The  mere  fact  of  their  appealing  to  Jesus 
shows  that  this  event  belongs  to  an  early  period  of  His  ministry,  when 
myriads  looked  to  Him  with  astonishment  and  hope,  and  before  the  deadly 
exasperation  of  after  days  had  begun.  Christ  immediately  granted  their 
request.  "I  will  go,"  he  said,  "and  heal  him."  But  on  the  way  they  met 
other  messengers  from  the  humble  and  devout  centurion,  entreating  Him 
not  to  enter    the    unworthy  roof  of   a  Gentile,  but   to    heal  the  suffering 

1  St.  Matthew's  briefer  and  less  accurate  narrative  represents  the  request  as  coming  from  the  centurion 
himself,  on  the  every-day  principle  that  "  He  who  does  a  thing  by  another's  agency  does  it  himself."  For 
a  similar  case,  comp.  Matt.  xx.  20  with  Mark  x.  35.  Of  course  if  Inspiration  were  a  supernatural,  mir- 
arulous  interposition,  instead  of,  as  we  believe,  a  guiding  and  illuminating  influence,  such  apparent  dis- 
crepancias  would  not  exist.  But,  as  the  Jews  wisely  said  even  of  their  adored  Law,  "  the  Law  speaks  with 
the  tongue  of  the  sons  of  men,"  so  we  may  say  with  St.  Augustine,  that  the  Evangelists  are  perfectly  sober 
and  truthful  witnesses,  though  they  were  not  in  trivial  matters  miraculously  exempted  from  insignificant 
imperfections  of  memory,  and  speak  to  us  as  we  speak  to  each  other.  I  would  not  go  so  far  as  St.  Augus- 
tine in  saying  that  they  wrote  "just  as  each  remembered,  or  as  each  pleased;"  but  I  would  ask  with 
him,  "  Could  the  Scripture  speak  otherwise  to  us  than  in  our  own  way?"  In  the  face  of  such  obvious  vari- 
ations— trivial  indeed,  yet  real — as  exist  between  them,  in  recording  exact  words  (1?.^.,  those  uttered  in 
Gethsemane,  or  by  the  .Apostles  in  the  sinking  ship),  and  facts  {e.g.,  the  order  of  the  Temptations  and  the 
Title  on  the  Cross),  1  do  not  see  how  their  supernatural  and  infallible  accuracy,  as  apart  from  their  abso- 
lutely truthful  evidence,  can  be  maintained. 

2  Alford  points  out  that  he  is  not  designated  by  the  terms  usually  applied  to  proselytes  (e.g.,  in  Acts 
X.  I,  2).  He  may  have  been  one  of  the  Samaritan  soldiers  of  Herod  Antipas,  or  he  may  have  been  at  the 
head  of  a  small  Roman  garrison  at  Capernaum. 

3  Luke  vii.  5.  There  were  said  to  be  400  synagogues  in  Jerusalem,  and  if  Capernaum  be  Tell  Hfim, 
there  are  among  its  ruins  the  apparent  remains  of  at  least  two  synagogues.  Perhaps  when  the  traveler  is 
sitting  among  the  sculptured  debris  of  white  marble  which  crown  the  low  bluff  on  which  Tell  Hum 
stands,  he  may  be  in  the  ruins  of  the  actual  building,  which  by  its  splendor  attested  the  centurion's  lib- 
eral and  kindly  feelings  towards  the  Jews,  and  which  once  rang  with  the  echoes  of  the  voice  of  Christ. 


FURTHER  MIRACLES.  205 

slave  (^as  He  had  healed  the  son  of  the  courtier)  by  a  mere  word  of  power. 
As  the  centurion,  though  in  a  subordinate  office,  yet  had  ministers  ever 
ready  to  do  his  bidding,  so  could  not  Christ  bid  viewless  messengers  to 
perform  His  will,  without  undergoing  this  personal  labor?  The  Lord  was 
struck  by  so  remarkable  a  faith,  greater  than  any  which  He  had  met  with 
even  in  Israel.  He  had  found  in  the  oleaster  what  He  had  not  found 
in  the  olive  ;  and  He  drew  from  this  circumstance  the  lesson,  which  fell 
with  such  a  chilling  and  unwelcome  sound  on  Jewish  ears,  that  when  many 
of  the  natural  children  of  the  kingdom  should  be  cast  into  outer  darkness, 
many  should  come  from  the  East  and  the  West,  and  sit  down  with  Abra- 
ham and  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  the  centurion's 
messengers  found  on  their  return  that  the  healing  word  had  been  effectual, 
and  that  the  cherished  slave  had  been  restored  to  health. 

It  is  not  strange  that,  after  days  so  marvelous  as  these,  it  was  im- 
possible for  Jesus  to  find  due  repose.  From  early  dawn  on  the  mountain- 
top  to  late  evening  in  whatever  house  He  had  selected  for  His  nightly 
rest,  the  multitudes  came  crowding  about  Him,  not  respecting  his  privacy, 
not  allowing  for  His  weariness,  eager  to  see  Him,  eager  to  share  His 
miracles,  eager  to  listen  to  His  words.  There  was  no  time  even  to  eat 
bread.  Such  a  life  is  not  only  to  the  last  degree  trying  and  fatiguing, 
but  to  a  refined  and  high-strung  nature,  rejoicing  in  noble  solitude,  find- 
ing its  purest  and  most  perfect  happiness  in  lonely  prayer,  this  incessant 
publicity,  this  apparently  illimitable  toil  becomes  simply  maddening,  un- 
less the  spirit  be  sustained  by  boundless  sympathy  and  love.  But  the 
heart  of  the  Saviour  was  so  sustained.  It  is  probably  to  this  period  that 
the  remarkable  anecdote  belongs  which  is  preserved  for  us  by  St.  Mark 
alone.  The  kinsmen  and  immediate  family  of  Christ,  hearing  of  all  that 
He  was  doing,  came  from  their  home — perhaps  at  Cana,  perhaps  at  Caper- 
naum, to  get  possession  of  His  person,  to  put  Him  under  constraint." 
Their  informants  had  mistaken  the  exaltation  visible  in  all  His  words 
and  actions — the  intense  glow  of  compassion — the  burning  flame  of  love  ; 
they  looked  upon  it  as  over-excitement,  exaggerated  sensibility,  the  very 
delirium  of  beneficence  and  zeal.  With  the  world  there  has  ever  been  a 
tendency  to  confuse  the  fervor  of  enthusiasm  with  the  eccentricity  of  a 
disordered  genius.  "  Paul,  thou  art  mad,"  was  the  only  comment  which 
the  Apostle's  passion  of  exalted  eloquence  produced    on  the    cynical  and 

I  Mark  iii.  2i,  a  somewhat  vague  expression — seems  something  like  our  colloquial  e.\pression  "  his 
people." 


2o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

blas^  intellect  of  the  Roman  Procurator."  "  He  hath  a  devil,"  was  the  in- 
ference suggested  to  many  dull  and  worldly  hearers  after  some  of  the 
tenderest  and  divinest  sayings  of  our  Lord.'  "  Brother  Martin  has  a  fine 
genius,"  was  the  sneering  allusion  of  Pope  Leo  X.  to  Luther.  "  What 
crackbrained  fanatics,"  observed  the  fine  gentlemen  of  the  eighteenth 
century  when  they  spoke  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield.  Similar,  though  not 
so  coarse,  was  the  thought  which  filled  the  minds  of  Christ's  relatives, 
when  they  heard  of  this  sudden  and  amazing  activity  after  the  calm  seclu- 
sion of  thirty  unknown  and  unnoticed  years.  As  yet  they  were  out  of 
sympathy  with  Him;  they  knew  Him  not,  did  not  fully  believe  in  Him; 
they  said,  "  He  is  beside  Himself."  It  was  needful  that  they  should  be 
henceforth  taught  by  several  decisive  proofs  that  He  was  not  of  them ; 
that  this  was  no  longer  the  carpenter,  the  brother  of  James  and  Joses 
and  Judas  and  Simon,  but  the    Son    of   God,  the  Saviour  of    the  world. 

I  Acts  xxvi.  24.     Cf.  2  Cor.  v.  13. 
3  John  X.  20. 


CHAPTER   XX. 


JESUS    AT    NAIN. 


'Shall  the  dead  arise,  and  praise  thee?" — Ps.  Ixxxviii.   lo. 


m^>c. 


F  THE  common  reading  in  the  text  of  St.  Luke 
(vii.  ii)  be  right,  it  was  on  the  very  day  after 
these  events  that  our  Lord  took  His  way  from 
Capernaum  to  Nain. '  Possibly — for,  in  the 
dim  uncertainties  of  the  chronological  sequence, 
much  scope  must  be  left  to  pure  conjecture — 
the  incident  of  His  having  touched  the  leper 
may  have  tended  to  hasten  His  temporary 
departure  from  Capernaum  by  the  comments 
which  the  act  involved. 

Nain — now  a  squalid  and  miserable  village — 
is  about  twenty-five  miles  from  Capernaum,  and  lies  on 
the  north-west  slope  of  Jebel  el-Duhy,  or  Little  Hermon. 
The  name  (which  it  still  retains)  means  "  fair,"  and  its 
situation  near  Endor — nestling  picturesquely  on  the  hill- 
slopes  of  the  graceful  mountain,  and  full  in  view  of  Tabor  and  the 
heights  of  Zebulon — justifies  the  flattering  title.  Starting,  as  Orientals 
always  do,  early  in  the  cool  morning  hours,  Jesus,  in  all  probability, 
sailed  to  the  southern  end  of  the  lake,  and  then  passed  down  the 
Jordan  valley,  to  the  spot  where  the  wadys  of  the  Esdraelon  slope  down 
to  it ;  from  which  point,  leaving  Mount  Tabor  on  the  right  hand,  and 
Endor  on  the  left.  He  might  easily  have  arrived  at  the  little  village 
soon  after  noon. 

At  this  bright  and  welcome  period  of  His  ministry.    He  was  usually 
accompanied,  not  only  by  His  disciples,  but  also  by  rejoicing  and  adoring 

I  The  narratives  of  this  chapter  are  mostly  peculiar  to  St.  Luke  (vii.  n — 50).  The  message  of  St.  John 
Baptist's  disciples,  is,  however,  also  related  by  St.  Matthew  (.xi.  2 — Ig).  It  is  true  that  the  latter  word  is 
added  in  Luke  ix.  37  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  omitted  in  Acts  xxi.  i  ;  xxv.  17,  &c.  And  when  a  wider 
range  of  time  is  intended,  St.  Luke  uses  iv  tu  KaSeiija ;  on  the  other  hand,  according  to  Meyer,  when  ^fiipf 


is  understood,  St.  Luke  never  uses  ev.     See  Alford,   aJ.    loc. 
Tischendorf  reads  t'J  with  N  (prinid  manu),  C,  D,  K,  &c. 


'Ev  Tu  is  here  the    reading  of  A,  B,  L,  &c,; 


2o8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

crowds.  And  as  the  glad  procession,  so  full  of  their  high  hopes  and 
too-often-erring  beliefs  about  the  coming  King,  were  climbing  the  narrow 
and  rocky  ascent  that  leads  to  the  gate  of  Nain,  they  were  met  by  an- 
other and  a  sad  procession  issuing  through  it  to  bury  a  dead  youth  out- 
side the  walls."  There  was  a  pathos  deeper  than  ordinary  in  the  spec- 
tacle, and  therefore  probably,  in  that  emotional  race,  a  wail  wilder  and 
sincerer  than  the  ordinary  lamentation.  For  this  boy  was — in  language 
which  is  all  the  more  deeply  moving  from  its  absolute  simplicity,  and 
which  to  Jewish  ears  would  have  involved  a  sense  of  anguish  yet  deeper 
than  to  ours' — "the  only  son  of  his  mother,  and  she  a  widow."  The 
sight  of  this  terrible  sorrow  appealed  irresistibly  to  the  Saviour's  loving 
and  gentle  heart.  Pausing  only  to  say  to  the  mother,  "Weep  not,"  He 
approached,  and — heedless  once  more  of  purely  ceremonial  observances — 
touched  the  bier,  or  rather  the  open  coffin  in  which  the  dead  youth  lay. 
It  must  have  been  a  moment  of  intense  and  breathless  expectation.  Un- 
bidden, but  filled  with  indefinable  awe,  the  bearers  of  the  bier  stood  still. 
And  then  through  the  hearts  of  the  stricken  mourners,  and  through  the 
hearts  of  the  silent  multitude,  there  thrilled  the  calm  utterance,  "Young 
man,  arise!"  Would  that  dread  monosyllable ^  thrill  also  through  the  un- 
known mysterious  solitudes  of  death  ?  would  it  thrill  through  the  impen- 
etrable darkness  of  the  more-than-midnight  which  has  ever  concealed  from 
human  vision  the  world  beyond  the  grave?  It  did.  The  dead  got  up, 
and  began  to  speak;  and  He  delivered  him  to  his  mother. 

No  wonder  that  a  great  fear  fell  upon  all.  They  might  have  thought 
of  Elijah  and  the  widow  of  Sarepta ;  of  Elisha  and  the  lady  of  the  not 
far  distant  Shunem.  They  too,  the  greatest  of  the  Prophets,  had  restored 
to  lonely  women  their  dead  only  sons.  But  they  had  done  it  with  agonies 
and  energies  of  supplication,  wrestling  in  prayer,  and  lying  outstretched 
upon  the  dead;''  whereas  Jesus  had  wrought  that  miracle  calmly,  incident- 
ally, instantaneously,  in  His  own  name,  by  His  own  authority,  with  a 
single  word.  Could  they  judge  otherwise  than  that  "God  had  visited  His 
people?" 

1  The  ordinary  Jewish  custom.  The  rough  path  near  the  entrance  of  Nein  must  be  added  to  the  cer- 
tain sites  of  events  in  the  life  of  Christ.  The  rock-hewn  sepulchers  on  the  hill-side  may  well  be  as  old  as 
the  time  of  Christ,  and  it  is  probably  to  one  of  them  that  the  youth's  body  was  being  carried. 

2  Partly  because  to  die  childless  was  to  them  a  terrible  calamity  ;  partly  because  the  loss  of  offspring 
was  often  regarded  as  a  direct  punishment  for  sin  (Jer.  vi.  26  ;  Zech.  xii.  10 ;  Amos  viii.  10). 

3  Cl]?.  k^m  !  It  is  at  least  natural  to  suppose  that  our  Lord  used  the  same  Aramaic  word  as  to  the 
daughter  of  Jairus,  "  Talitha  cfimi  "  (Mark  v.  41). 

I   I  Kings  xvii.  21;  2  Kings  iv.  J5. 


CHRIST    HEAI.INC    THE    LEPER.— Matt.   vi„.   ir. 


CHRIST    AND    HIS    DISCIPLES    IN    THE   CORN-FIELDS.— Luke  vi.   1. 


JESUS  AT  NAIN.  209 

It  was  about  this  time,  possibly  even  on  this  same  day, '  that  our 
Lord  received  a  short  but  agitated  message  from  His  own  great  Fore- 
runner, John  the  Baptist.  Its  very  brevity  added  to  the  sense  of  doubt 
and  sadness  which  it  breathed.  "  Art  thou,"  he  asked,  "  the  coming 
Messiah,  or  are  we  to  expect  another?"' 

Was  this  a  message  from  him  who  had  first  recognized  and  pointed 
out  the  Lamb  of  God  ?  from  him  who,  in  the  rapture  of  vision,  had  seen 
heaven  opened  and  the  Spirit  descending  on  the  head  of  Jusus  like  a 
dove  ? 

It  may  be  so.  Some  have  indeed  imagined  that  the  message  was 
merely  intended  to  satisfy  the  doubts  of  the  Baptist's  jealous  and  dis- 
heartened followers ;  some,  that  his  question  only  meant,  "  Art  Thou  in- 
deed the  Jesus  to  whom  I  bore  my  testimony  P"^  some,  that  the  message 
implied  no  latent  hesitation,  but  was  intended  as  a  timid  suggestion  that 
the  time  was  now  come  for  Jesus  to  manifest  Himself  as  the  Messiah  of 
His  nation's  theocratic  hopes — perhaps  even  as  a  gentle  rebuke  to  Him 
for  allowing  His  friend  and  Forerunner  to  languish  in  a  dungeon,  and 
not  exerting  on  his  behalf  the  miraculous  power  of  which  these  rumors 
told.  But  these  suggestions — all  intended,  as  it  were,  to  save  the  credit 
of  the  Baptist — are  at  the  best  wholly  unauthorized,  and  are  partly  re- 
futed by  the  actual  expressions  of  the  narrative.  St.  John  Baptist  in  his 
heroic  greatness  needs  not  the  poor  aid  of  our  charitable  suppositions ; 
we  conclude,  from  the  express  words  of  Him  who  at  this  very  crisis  pro- 
nounced upon  him  the  most  splendid  eulogy  ever  breathed  over  mortal 
man,  that  the  great  and  noble  prophet  had  indeed,  for  the  moment, 
found  a  stumbling-block  to  his  faith  in  what  he  heard  about  the  Christ."* 

And  is  this  unnatural  ?  is  it  an  indecision  which  any  one  who  knows 
anything  of  the  human  heart  will  venture  for  a  moment  to  condemn  ? 
The  course  of  the  greatest  of  the  Prophets  had  been  brief  and  tragical — 

1  Matt.  xi.  2 — 19;  Luke  vii.  18 — 35. — I  am  well  aware  of  what  Stier  and  others  say  to  the  contrary; 
but  it  is  impossible  and  wholly  unnecessary  to  give  separate  reasons  and  proofs  at  each  step  of  the 
narrative. 

2  The  word  in  Matt.  xi.  3  would  strictly  mean  either  "a  second"  or  "one  quite  different;"  but  as 
the  messenger  doubtless  spoke  in  Aramaic,  the  variation  from  "another,"  of  Luke  vii.  ig  must  not 
be  pressed. 

3  The  main  argument  for  this  is  that  in  Matt.  xi.  2  it  says  that  John  had  heard  in  prison  the  works  of 
the  Messiah,  not  as  elsewhere  in  St.  Matthew,  "of  Jesus."  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  the  Gospels 
•  Christ"  is  always  a  title,  scarcely  ever  a  proper  name.  It  did  not  become  a  name  till  after  the  Resurrec- 
tion. Moreover,  it  appears  that  some  of  the  rumors  about  Jesus  were  that  He  was  Elijah,  or  Jeremiah, 
and  these  may  have  tended  to  confuse  the  prison-clouded  mind  of  John.  Dr.  Lightfoot  says  that  "  Christ" 
is  never  found  in  the  Gospels  with  "Jesus,"  except  in  John  xvii.  3  (but  add  Matt.  i.  i,  18  ;  Mark  i.  i). 

4  Matt.  xi.  II. 
14 


2  10  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

a  sad  calendar  of  disaster  and  eclipse.  Though  all  men  flocked  in  multi- 
tudes to  listen  to  the  fiery  preacher  of  the  wilderness,  the  real  effect  on 
the  mind  of  the  nation  had  been  neither  permanent  nor  deep."  We  may 
say  with  the  Scotch  poet — 

"  Who  listened  to  bis  voice  ?  obeyed  his  cry? 
Only  the  echoes  which  he  made  relent 
Rang  from  their  flinty  caves,  '  Repent !  repent ! '  " 

Even  before  Jesus  had  come  forth  in  the  fullness  of  His  ministry,  the 
power  and  influence  of  John  had  paled  like  a  star  before  the  sunrise. 
He  must  have  felt  very  soon — and  that  is  a  very  bitter  thing  for  any 
human  heart  to  feel — that  his  mission  for  this  life  was  over ;  that  nothing 
appreciable  remained  for  him  to  do.  Similar  moments  of  intense  and 
heart-breaking  despondency  had  already  occurred  in  the  lives  of  his  very 
greatest  predecessors — in  the  lives  of  even  a  Moses  and  an  Elijah.  But 
the  case  was  far  worse  with  John  the  Baptist  than  with  them.  For 
though  his  friend  and  his  Saviour  was  living,  was  at  no  great  distance 
from  him,  as  in  the  full  tide  of  His  influence,  and  was  daily  working  the 
miracles  of  love  which  attested  His  mission,  yet  John  saw  that  Friend 
and  Saviour  on  earth  no  more.  There  were  no  visits  to  console,  no  in- 
tercourse to  sustain  him  ;  he  was  surrounded  only  by  the  coldness  of 
listeners  whose  curiosity  had  waned,  and  the  jealousy  of  disciples  whom 
his  main  testimony  had  disheartened.  And  then  came  the  miserable  cli- 
max. Herod  Antipas,  partly  influenced  by  political  fears,  partly  enraged 
by  John's  just  and  blunt  rebuke  of  his  adulterous  life,  though  at  first  he 
listened  to  the  Baptist  with  the  superstition  which  is  the  usual  concomi- 
tant of  cunning,  had  ended  by  an  uxorious  concession  to  the  hatred  of 
Herodias,  and  had  flung  him  into  prison. 

Josephus  tells  us  that  this  prison  was  the  fortress  of  Machaerus,  or 
Makor,  a  strong  and  gloomy  castle,  built  by  Alexander  Jannaeus  and 
strengthened  by  Herod  the  Great,  on  the  frontiers  of  Arabia.'  We  know 
enough  of  solitary  castles  and  Eastern  dungeons  to  realize  what  horrors 
must  have  been  involved  for  any  man  in  such  an  imprisonment  ;  what 
possibilities  of  agonizing  torture,  what  daily  risk  of  a  violent  and  un- 
known death.  How  often  in  the  world's  history  have  even  the  most 
generous  and  dauntless  spirits  been  crushed  and  effeminated  by  such 
hopeless  captivity  !     When  the  first  noble  rage,  or   heroic    resignation,  is 

1  Matt.  xi.  i8  ;  xxi.  23 — 27 ;  John  v.  35. 

2  The  ruins  of  it  have  rarely  been  visited,  but  were  discovered,  or  at  any  rate  heard  of,  by  Seatzen  in 
1807,  and  were  visited  by  Dr.  Tristram. 


JESUS  AT  NAIN.  211 

over— when  the  iron-hearted  endurance  is  corroded  by  forced  inactivity 
and  maddening  solitude — when  the  great  heart  is  cowed  by  the  physical 
lassitude  and  despair  of  a  life  left  to  rot  away  in  the  lonely  darkness — 
who  can  be  answerable  for  the  level  of  depression  to  which  he  may  sink  ? 
Savonarola,  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  and  Luther  were  men  whose  courage, 
like  that  of  the  Baptist,  had  enabled  them  to  stand  unquailing  before  angry 
councils  and  threatening  kings  :  will  any  one,  in  forming  an  estimate  of 
their  goodness  and  their  greatness,  add  one  shade  of  condemnation  be- 
cause of  the  wavering  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  in  the  prison-cells 
of  Florence  and  Constance,  or  the  fantasies  of  incipient  madness  which 
agitated,  in  the  castle  of  Wartburg,  the  ardent  spirit  of  the  third  ?  And 
yet  to  St.  John  Baptist  imprisonment  must  have  been  a  deadlier  thing 
than  even  to  Luther  ;  for  in  the  free  wild  life  of  the  hermit  he  had  lived 
in  constant  communion  with  the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature,  had  breathed 
with  delight  and  liberty  the  free  winds  of  the  wilderness.  To  a  child  of 
freedom  and  of  passion,  to  a  rugged,  untamed  spirit  like  that  of  John,  a 
prison  was  worse  than  death.  For  the  palms  of  Jericho  and  the  balsams 
of  Engedi,  for  the  springing  of  the  beautiful  gazelles  amid  the  mountain 
solitudes,  and  the  reflection  of  the  moonlight  on  the  mysterious  waves  of 
the  Salt  Lake,  he  had  nothing  now  but  the  chilly  damps  and  cramping 
fetters  of  a  dungeon,  and  the  brutalities  of  such  a  jailer  as  a  tetrarch 
like  Antipas  would  have  kept  in  a  fortress  like  Makor.  In  that  black 
prison,  among  its  lava  streams  and  basaltic  rocks,  which  was  tenanted  in 
reality  by  far  worse  demons  of  human  brutality  and  human  vice  than  the 
"goats"  and  "satyrs"  and  doleful  creatures  believed  by  Jewish  legend 
to  haunt  its  whole  environment,  we  cannot  wonder  if  the  eye  of  the 
caged  eagle  began  to  film. 

Not  once  or  twice  alone  in  the  world's  history  has  God  seemed  to 
make  His  best  and  greatest  servants  drink  to  the  very  dregs  the  cup  of 
apparent  failure — called  them  suddenly  away  by  the  sharp  stroke  of 
martyrdom,  or  down  the  long  declivities  of  a  lingering  disease,  before 
even  a  distant  view  of  their  work  has  been  vouchsafed  to  them ;  flung 
them,  as  it  were,  aside  like  broken  instruments,  useless  for  their  destined 
purpose,  ere  He  crowned  with  an  immortality  of  success  and  blessing 
the  lives  which  fools  regarded  as  madness,  and  the  end  that  has  been 
without  human  honor.  It  is  but  a  part  of  that  merciful  fire  in  which 
He  is  purging  away  the  dross  from  the  seven-times-refined  gold  of  a 
spirit  which  shall    be  worthy  of    eternal    bliss.      But    to    none    could    this 


212  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

disciplinary  tenderness  have  come  in  more  terrible  disguise  than  to  St. 
John.  For  he  seemed  to  be  neglected  not  only  by  God  above,  but  by 
the  living  Son  of  God  on  earth.  John  was  pining  in  Herod's  prison 
while  Jesus,  in  the  glad  simplicity  of  His  early  Galilean  ministry,  was 
preaching  to  rejoicing  multitudes  among  the  mountain  lilies  or  from  the 
waves  of  the  pleasant  lake.  Oh,  why  did  His  father  in  heaven  and  his 
Friend  on  earth  suffer  him  to  languish  in  this  soul-clouding  misery  ? 
Had  not  his  life  been  innocent  ?  had  not  his  ministry  been  faithful  ?  had 
not  his  testimony  been  true?  Oh,  why  did  not  He,  to  whom  he 
had  borne  witness  beyond  Jordan,  call  down  fire  from  heaven  to 
shatter  those  foul  and  guilty  towers?  Among  so  many  miracles  might 
not  one  be  spared  to  the  unhappy  kinsman  who  had  gone  before  His 
face  to  prepare  His  way  before  Him?  Among  so  many  words  of  mercy 
and  tenderness  might  not  some  be  vouchsafed  to  him  who  had  uttered 
that  Voice  in  the  wilderness  ?  Why  should  not  the  young  Son  of  David 
rock  with  earthquake  the  foundations  of  these  Idumaean  prisons,  where 
many  a  noble  captive  had  been  unjustly  slain,  or  send  but  one  of  His 
twelve  legions  of  angels  to  liberate  His  Forerunner  and  His  friend,  were 
it  but  to  restore  him  to  his  desert  solitude  once  more — content  there  to 
end  his  life  among  the  wild  beasts,  so  it  were  far  from  man's  tyrannous 
infamy,  and  under  God's  open  sky  ?  What  wonder,  we  say  again,  if  the 
eye  of  the  caged  eagle  began  to  film  ! 

"Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another?" 
Jesus  did  not  directly  answer  the  question.  He  showed  the  mes- 
sengers. He  let  them  see  with  their  own  eyes,  some  of  the  works  of 
which  hitherto  they  had  only  heard  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear.  And 
then,  with  a  reference  to  the  6ist  chapter  of  Isaiah,  He  bade  them  take 
back  to  their  master  the  message,  that  blind  men  saw,  and  lame  walked, 
and  lepers  were  cleansed,  and  deaf  heard,  and  dead  were  raised  ; '  and 
above  all,  and  more  than  all,  that  to  the  poor  the  glad  tidings  were 
being  preached  :  and  then,  we  can  imagine  with  how  deep  a  tenderness, 
He  added,  "And  blessed  is  he  whosoever  shall  not  be  offended  in  Me" — 
blessed  (that  is)  is  he  who  shall  trust  Me,  even  in  spite  of  sorrow 
and  persecution— he  who  shall  believe  that  I  know  to  the  utmost  the 
will  of  Him  that  sent  Me,  and  how  and  when  to  finish   His  work. 

I  Even  if  the  spiritual  meaning  did  not  predominate  in  these  expressions,  as  seems  to  be  clear  from 
the  words  which  formed  their  climax,  yet  the  recent  miracle  at  Nain  would  alone  suffice  to  justify  this 
allusion.  I  may  observe  here  that  I  quote  from  these  latter  chapters  of  "  Isaiah  "  without  thinking  it 
necessary  to  call  the  writer  of  them,  as  Ewald  does,  "  the  Great  Unnamed." 


JESUS  AT  NAIN.  213 

We  may  easily  suppose,  though  nothing  more  is  told  us,  that  the 
di-sciples  did  not  depart  without  receiving  from  Jesus  other  words  of 
private  affection  and  encouragement  for  the  grand  prisoner  whose  end 
was  now  so  nearly  approaching — words  which  would  be  to  him  sweeter 
th^n  the  honey  which  had  sustained  his  hunger  in  the  wilderness,  dearer 
than  water-springs  in  the  dry  ground.  And  no  sooner  had  the  dis- 
ciples departed,  than  He  who  would  not  seem  to  be  guilty  of  idle 
flattery,  but  yet  wished  to  prevent  His  hearers  from  cherishing  one  de- 
preciatory thought  of  the  great  Prophet  of  the  Desert,  uttered  over  His 
friend  and  Forerunner,  in  language  of  perfect  loveliness,  the  memorable 
eulogy,  that  he  was  indeed  the  promised  Voice  in  the  new  dawn  of  a 
nobler  day,  the  greatest  of  all  God's  herald  messengers — the  Elias  who, 
according  to  the  last  word  of  ancient  prophecy,  was  to  precede  the 
Advent  of  the  Messiah,  and  to  prepare  His  way. 

"  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  for  to  see? 

"  A  reed  shaken  by  the  wind  ? 

"  But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see  ? 

"  A  man  clothed  in  soft  raiment  ? 

"  Behold,  they  that  wear  soft  clothing  are  in  kings    houses ! ' 

"But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see? 

" A  prophet  ? 

"  Yea,  I  say  unto  you,  and  far  more  than  a  prophet.  For  this  is  he 
of  whom  it  is  written.  Behold,  I  send  My  messenger  before  Thy  face, 
who  shall  prepare  Thy  way  before  Thee." 

And  having  pronounced  this  rhythmic  and  impassioned  eulogy.  He 
proceeded  to  speak  to  them  more  calmy  respecting  Himself  and  John,  and 
to  tell  them  that  though  John  was  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Old  Dis- 
pensation, yet  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  greater  than  he. 
The  brevity  with  which  the  words  are  repeated  leaves  their  meaning 
uncertain  ;  but  the  superiority  intended  is  a  superiority  doubtless  in  spirit- 
ual privileges,  not  in  moral  exaltation.  "  The  least  of  that  which  is 
greatest,"  says  a  legal  maxim,  "  is  greater  than  the  greatest  of  that  which 
is  least;"  and  in  revealed  knowledge,  in  illimitable  hope,  in  conscious 
closeness  of  relationship  to  His  Father  and  His  God,  the  humblest  child 
of  the  New  Covenant  is  more  richly  endowed  than  the  greatest  prophet 
of  the  Old.     And  into    that    kingdom    of    God    whose    advent  was    now 

I  "  Those  in  gorgeous  apparel  and  luxury,"  is  the  slight  variation  in  St.  Luke.  John,  too,  had  been 
in  kings'  houses,  but  it  was  in  hairy  mantle,  and  not  to  praise,  but  to  denounce.  As  Lange  finely 
observes,  John  was  not  a  reed  waving  in  the  wind,  but  rather  a  cedar  half-uprooted  by  the  storm. 


214  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

proclaimed,  henceforth  with  holy  and  happy  violence  they  all  might  press. 
Such  eager  violence — natural  to  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  after  righte- 
ousness— would  be  only  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God.  ' 

Many  who  heard  these  words,  and  especially  the  publicans  and  those 
who  were  scorned  as  the  "people  of  the  earth,"'  accepted  with  joy  and 
gratitude  this  approbation  of  their  confidence  in  John.  But  there  were 
others — the  accredited  teachers  of  the  written  and  oral  Law — who  listened 
to  such  words  with  contemptuous  dislike.  Struck  with  these  contrasts, 
Jesus  drew  an  illustration  from  peevish  children  who  fretfully  reject  every 
effort  of  their  fellows  to  delight  or  amuse  them.  Nothing  could  please 
such  soured  and  rebellious  natures.  The  flute  and  dance  of  the  little 
ones  who  played  at  weddings  charmed  them  as  little  as  the  long  wail  of 
the  simulated  funeral.  God's  "  richly-variegated  wisdom "  had  been  ex- 
hibited to  them  in  many  fragments,  and  by  many  methods,^  yet  all  in 
vain.  John  had  come  to  them  in  the  stern  asceticism  of  the  hermit,  and 
they  called  him  mad;  Jesus  joined  in  the  banquet  and  the  marriage-feast, 
and  they  called  Him  "an  eater  and  a  wine-drinker."*  Even  so!  yet 
Wisdom  has  been  ever  justified  at  her  children's  hands.  Those  children 
have  not  disgraced  their  divine  original.  Fools  might  account  their  life 
as  madness,  and  their  end  to  be  without  honor ;  but  how  is  the  very 
humblest  of  them  numbered  among  the  children  of  God,  and  their  lot 
among  the  saints!' 

1  Cf.  Isa.  Ix.  8,  ii;  Luke  v.  i;  xiii.  24. 

2  The  am  ha-arets,  or  as  we  should  say,  "  mere  boors." 

3  Eph.  iii.  10;  Heb.  i.  i. 

4  Matt.  xi.  16 — 19  ;  Luke  vii.  31 — 35.  The  A.  V.,  "a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine-bibber,"  is  perhaps 
a  shade  too  strong  ;  the  words  do  not  necessarily  mean  more  than  a  bon  vivant,  but  perhaps  they  corre- 
spond to  expressions  which  connoted  something  more  in  Aramaic. 

5  Ps.  li.  4  ;  Rom.  iii.  4.  I  have  embodied  into  the  text,  without  expansion,  reference,  or  comment, 
the  view  which  seems  to  me  the  best ;  and  I  have  followed  the  same  method  of  dealing  with  many  other 
passages  of  which  the  exegesis  is  confessedly  difBcult,  and  to  some  extent  uncertain.  I  cannot  accept 
Ewald's  notion  that  the  allusion  is  to  a  kind  of  "  guessing-game,"  where  the  children  had  to  pay  forfeit  if 
they  failed  to  understand  the  scene  which  their  fellows  were  acting. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 


THE     SINNER     AND     THE     PHARISEE. 


Because  of  the  savor  of  thy  good  ointments  thy  name  is  as  ointment  poured  forth." — Cant.  i.  3. 

UT  not  even  yet  apparently  were  the  deeds  and 
sayings  of  this  memorable  day  concluded ;  for 
in  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke  it  seems  to  have 
been  on  the  same  day  that,  perhaps  at  Nain, 
perhaps  at  Magdala,  Jesus  received  and  accepted 
an  invitation  from  one  of  the  Pharisees  who 
bore  the  very  common  name  of  Simon.' 

The  cause  or  object  of  the  invitation  we  do 
not  know ;  but  as  yet  Jesus  had  come  to  no 
marked  or  open  rupture  with  the  Pharisaic  party, 
and  they  may  even  have  imagined  that  He  might 
prove  of  use  to  them  as  the  docile  instrument  of  their 
political  and  social  purposes.  Probably,  in  inviting  Him, 
Simpn  was  influenced  partly  by  curiosity,  partly  by  the 
desire  to  receive  a  popular  and  distinguished  teacher,  partly 
by  willingness  to  show  a  distant  approval  of  something  which  may  have  . 
struck  him  in  Christ's  looks,  or  words,  or  ways.  It  is  quite  clear  that 
the  hospitality  was  meant  to  be  qualified  and  condescending.  All  the 
ordinary  attentions  which  would  have  been  paid  to  an  honored  guest 
were  coldly  and  cautiously  omitted.  There  was  no  water  for  the  weary 
and  dusty  feet,  no  kiss  of    welcome   upon  the  cheek,  no  perfume  for  the 

I  Luke  vii.  36 — 50.  Those  who  identify  this  feast  at  the  house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee,  in  Galilee, 
with  the  long-subsequent  feast  at  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper,  at  Bethany,  and  the  anointing  of  the  feet 
by  "a  woman  that  was  a  sinner  in  the  city,"  with  the  anointing  of  the  head  by  Mary  the  sister  of  Martha, 
adopt  principles  of  criticism  so  r*kless  and  arbitrary  that  their  general  acceptance  would  rob  the 
Gospels  of  all  credibility,  and  make  them  hardly  worth  study  as  truthful  narratives.  As  for  the  names 
Simon  and  Judas,  which  have  led  to  so  many  identifications  of  different  persons  and  different  incidents, 
they  were  at  least  as  common  among  the  Jews  of  that  day  as  Smith  and  Jones  among  ourselves.  There 
are  five  or  six  Judes  and  nine  Simons  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  and  two  Judes  and  two  Simons 
among  the  Apostles  alone.  Josephus  speaks  of  some  Un  Judes  and  txuenty  Simons  in  his  writings,  and 
there  must,  therefore,  have  been  thousands  of  others  who  at  this  period  had  one  of  these  two  names.  Thq 
incident  is  one  quite  in  accordance  with  the  customs  of  the  time  and  country,  and  there  is  not  the  least 
improbability  in  its  repetition  under  different  circumstances  (Eccles.  ix.  8  ;  Cant.  iv.  10 ;  Amos  vi.  6).  The 
custom  still  continues  (Renan,   Vie  de  Jesus ,  p.  385), 


2i6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

hair,  nothing  but  a  somewhat  ungracious  admission  to  a  vacant  place  at 
the  table,  and  the  most  distant  courtesies  of  ordinary  intercourse,  so 
managed  that  the  Guest  might  feel  that  He  was  supposed  to  be  receiv- 
ing an  honor,  and  not  to  be  conferring  one. 

In  order  that  the  mats  or  carpets  which  are  hallowed  by  domestic 
prayer  may  not  be  rendered  unclean  by  any  pollution  of  the  streets,  each 
guest,  as  he  enters  a  house  in  Syria  or  Palestine,  takes  off  his  sandals^ 
and  leaves  them  at  the  door.  He  then  proceeds  to  his  place  at  the  table. 
In  ancient  times,  as  we  find  throughout  the  Old  Testament, '  it  was  the 
custom  of  the  Jews  to  eat  their  meals  sitting  cross-legged — as  is  still  com- 
mon throughout  the  East — in  front  of  a  tray  placed  upon  a  low  stool,  on 
which  is  set  the  dish  containing  the  heap  of  food,  from  which  all  help 
themselves  in  common.  But  this  custom,  though  it  has  been  resumed  for 
centuries,  appears  to  have  been  abandoned  by  the  Jews  in  the  period 
succeeding  the  Captivity.  Whether  they  had  borrowed  the  recumbent 
posture  at  meals  from  the  Persians  or  not,  it  is  certain,  from  the  expres- 
sions employed,  that  in  the  time  of  our  Lord  the  Jews,  like  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  reclined  at  banquets, '  upon  couches  placed  round  tables  of 
much  the  same  height  as  those  now  in  use.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that 
even  the  passover  was  eaten  in  this  attitude.  The  beautiful  and  pro- 
foundly moving  incident  which  occurred  in  Simon's  house  can  only  be 
understood  by  remembering  that  as  the  guests  lay  on  the  couches  which 
surrounded  the  tables,  their  feet  would  be  turned  towards  any  spectators 
who  were  standing  outside  the  circle  of  bidden  guests. 

An  Oriental's  house  is  by  no  means  his  castle.  The  universal  preva- 
lence of  the  law  of  hospitality— the  very  first  of  Eastern  virtues — almost 
forces  him  to  live  with  open  doors,  and  any  one  may  at  any  time  have 
access  to  his  rooms.  But  on  this  occasion  there  was  one  who  had  sum- 
moned up  courage  to  intrude  upon  that  respectable  dwelling-place  a 
presence  which  was  not  only  unwelcome,  but  positively  odious.  A  poor, 
stained,  fallen  woman,  notorious  in  the  place  for  her  evil  life,  discover- 
ing that  Jesus  was  supping  in  the  house  of  me  Pharisee,  ventured  to 
make  her  way  there  among  the  throng  of  other  visitants,  carrying  with 
h«r  an  alabaster  box  of  spikenard.  She  found  the  object  of  her  search, 
and  as  she  stood  humbly  behind  Him,  and  listened  to  His  words,  and 
thought  of  all  that  He  was,  and  all  to  which  she  had  fallen — thought  of 

I  We  do  not  hear  of  reclining  till  the  Exile  (Esth.  i.  6;  vii.  8). 

3  The  words  used  signify  "  to  recline  "  (Luke  xi.  37;  John  xxi.  20;  Tobit  ii.  i),  "'  to  lie  at  table  "  (Luke 
vii.  37;  cf.  3  Esdras  iv.  10),  "  to  lean  back"  (Luke  vii.  36;  xii.  37;  Judith  xii.  15). 


THE  SINNER  AND  THE  PHARISEE.  217 

the  stainless,  sinless  purity  of  the  holy  and  youthful  Prophet,  and  of  her 
own  shameful,  degraded  life — she  began  to  weep,  and  her  tears  dropped 
fast  upon  His  unsandaled  feet,  over  which  she  bent  lower  and  lower  to 
hide  her  confusion  and  her  shame.  The  Pharisee  would  have  started 
back  with  horror  from  the  touch,  still  more  from  the  tear,  of  such  an 
one  ;  he  would  have  wiped  away  the  fancied  pollution,  and  driven  off  the 
presumptuous  intruder  with  a  curse.  But  this  woman  felt  instinctively 
that  Jesus  would  not  treat  her  so  ;  she  felt  that  the  highest  sinlessness  is 
also  the  deepest  sympathy ;  she  saw  that  where  the  hard  respectability  of 
her  fellow-sinner  would  repel,  the  perfect  holiness  of  her  Saviour  would 
receive.  Perhaps  she  had  heard  those  infinitely  tender  and  gracious 
words  which  may  have  been  uttered  on  this  very  day ' — "Come  unto  me, 
all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  And 
she  was  emboldened  by  being  unreproved ;  and  thus  becoming  conscious 
that,  whatever  others  might  do,  the  Lord  at  any  rate  did  not  loathe  or 
scorn  her,  she  drew  yet  nearer  to  Him,  and,  sinking  down  upon  her 
knees,  began  with  her  long  disheveled  hair  to  wipe  the  feet  which  had 
been  wetted  with  her  tears,  and  then  to  cover  them  with  kisses,  and  at 
last — breaking  the  alabaster  vase — to  bathe  them  with  the  precious  and 
fragrant  nard. 

The  sight  of  that  disheveled  woman,  the  shame  of  her  humiliation, 
the  agonies  of  her  penitence,  the  quick  dropping  of  her  tears,  the  sacrifice 
of  that  perfume  which  had  been  one  of  the  instruments  of  her  unhal- 
lowed arts,  might  have  touched  even  the  stoniest  feelings  into  an  emotion 
of  sympathy.  But  Simon,  the  Pharisee,  looked  on  with  icy  dislike  and 
disapproval. 

The  irresistible  appeal  to  pity  of  that  despairing  and  broken- 
hearted mourner  did  not  move  him.  It  was  not  enough  for  him 
that  Jesus  had  but  suffered  the  unhappy  creature  to  kiss  and  anoint 
His  feet,  without  speaking  to  her  as  yet  one  word  of  encouragement. 
Had  He  been  a  prophet,  He  ought  to  have  known  what  kind  of  woman 
she  was  ;  and  had  He  known,  He  ought  to  have  repulsed  her  with  con- 
tempt and  indignation,  as  Simon  would  himself  have  done.  Her  mere 
touch  almost  involved  the  necessity  of  a  ceremonial  quarantine.  One 
sign  from  Him,  and  Simon  would  have  been  only  too  glad  of  an  excuse 
for  ejecting  such  a  pollution  from  the  shelter  of  his  roof. 

I  They  are  given  by  St.  Matthew  in  close  connection  with  the  preceding  events  (xi.  2S)  ;  it  is,  however, 
clear  that  St.  Matthew  is  here  recording  discourses,  or  parts  of  discourses,  which  belong  to  diflferent  times. 


2l8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

The  Pharisee  did  not  utter  these  thoughts  aloud,  but  his  frigid 
demeanor,  and  the  contemptuous  expression  of  countenance,  which  he 
did  not  take  the  trouble  to  disguise,  showed  all  that  was  passing  in  his 
heart.  Our  Lord  heard  his  thoughts, "  but  did  not  at  once  reprove  and 
expose  his  cold  uncharity  and  unrelenting  hardness.  In  order  to  call 
general  attention  to  His  words.   He  addressed  His  host. 

"  Simon,   I  have  something  to  say  to  thee." 

"  Master,  say  on,"  is  the  somewhat  constrained  reply. 

"  There  was  a  certain  creditor  who  had  two  debtors  :  the  one  owed 
five  hundred  pence,  and  the  other  fifty  ;  and  when  they  had  nothing  to 
pay,  he  freely  forgave  them  both.  Tell  me  then,  which  of  them  will 
love  him  most  ?" 

Simon  does  not  seem  to  have  had  the  slightest  conception  that  the 
question  had  any  reference  to  himself — as  little  conception  as  David  had 
when  he  pronounced  so  frank  a  judgment  on   Nathan's  parable. 

"  I  imagine,"  he  said — there  is  a  touch  of  supercilious  patronage,  of 
surprised  indifference  to  the  whole  matter  in  the  word  he  uses' — "  I  pre- 
sume that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most." 

"  Thou  hast  rightly  judged."  And  then — the  sterner  for  its  very 
gentleness  and  forbearance — came  the  moral  and  application  of  the  little 
tale,  couched  in  that  rhythmic  utterance  of  antithetic  parallelism  which 
our  Lord  often' adopted  in  His  loftier  teaching,  and  which  appealed  like 
the  poetry  of  their  own  prophets  to  the  ears  of  those  who  heard  it. 
Though  Simon  may  not  have  seen  the  point  of  the  parable,  perhaps  the 
penitent,  with  the  quicker  intuition  of  a  contrite  heart,  had  seen  it.  But 
what  must  have  been  her  emotion  when  He  who  hitherto  had  not  noticed 
her,  now  turned  full  towards  her,  and  calling  the  attention  of  all  who 
were  present  to  her  shrinking  figure,  as  she  sat  upon  the  ground,  hiding 
with  her  two  hands  and  with  her  disheveled  hair  the  confusion  of  her 
face,  e.xclaimed  to  the  astonished  Pharisee — 

"Simon!  dost  thou  mark^  this  woman? 

"  I  was  thine  own  guest :  thou  pouredst  no  water  over  my  feet ;  but 
she,  with  her  tears,  washed  my  feet,  and  with    her  hair  she  wiped  them. 

1  "  Audivit  Pharisaeura  cogitantem  " — "  He  heard  the  Pharisee  thinking  "  (Augustine).  "  Guard  well 
thy  thoughts,  for  thoughts  are  heard  in  heaven." 

2  Luke  vii.  43.     Cf.  Acts  ii.  15. 

3  Perhaps  Simon  had  disdained  even  to  look  at  her  attentively,  as  though  even  that  would  stain  his 
sanctity!  The  "  I  was  thine  own  guest"  is  an  attempt  to  bring  out  the  force  observable  in  the  order  of 
the  Greek  original.     The  words,  "on  the  feet,"  imply  the  pouring.     Cf.  Rev.  viii.  3  ;  Gen.  xviii.  4;  Judg. 


THE  SINNER  AND  THE  PHARISEE.  219 

"  No  kiss  gavest  thou  to  Me  ;  but  she,  since  the  time  I  came  in, 
has  been  ceaselessly  covering  my  feet  with  kisses/ 

"  My  head  with  oil  thou  anointedst  not ;  but  she  with  spikenard 
anointed  my  feet. 

"Wherefore  I  say  to  you,  her  sins — her  many  sins — have  been  for- 
given ;  but  he  to  whom  there  is  but  little  forgiveness,  loveth  little." 

And  then  like  the  rich  close  of  gracious  music,  he  added,  no  longer 
to  Simon,  but  to  the  poor  sinful  woman  the  words  of  mercy,  "  Thy  sins 
have  been   forgiven." 

Our  Lord's  words  were  constantly  a  nev  revelation  for  all  who 
heard  them,  and  if  we  may  judge  from  many  little  indications  in  the 
Gospels,  they  seem  often  to  have  been  followed,  in  the  early  days  of 
His  ministry,  by  a  shock  of  surprised  silence,  which  at  a  later  date, 
among  those  who  rejected  Him,  broke  out  into  fierce  reproaches  and 
indignant  murmurs.  At  this  stage  of  His  work,  the  spell  of  awe  and 
majesty  produced  by  His  love  and  purity,  and  by  that  inward  Divinity 
which  shone  in  His  countenance  and  sounded  in  His  voice,  had  not  yet 
been  broken.  It  was  only  in  their  secret  thoughts  that  the  guests — 
rather,  it  seems,  in  astonisment  than  in  wrath — ventured  to  question  this 
calm  and  simple  claim  to  a  more  than  earthly  attribute.  It  was  only  in 
their  hearts  that  they  silently  mused  and  questioned,  "  Who  is  this,  who 
forgiveth  sins  also?"  Jesus  knew  their  inward  hesitations;  but  it  had 
been  prophesied  of  Him  that  "  He  should  not  strive  nor  cry,  neither 
should  His  voice  be  heard  in  the  streets;"  and  because  He  would  not 
break  the  bruised  reed  of  their  faith,  or  quench  the  smoking  flax  of 
their  reverent  amazement,  He  gently  sent  away  the  woman  who  had 
been  a  sinner,  with  the  kind  words,  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee  :  go  into 
peace.""  And  to  peace  beyond  all  doubt  she  went,  even  to  the  peace  of 
God  which  passeth  all  understanding,  to  the  peace  which  Jesus  gives, 
which  is  not  as  the  world  gives. 

To  the  general  lesson  which  her  story  inculcates  we  shall  return 
hereafter,  for  it  is  one  which  formed  a  central  doctrine  of  Christ's 
revelation ;  I  mean  the  lesson  that  cold  and  selfish  hypocrisy  is  in  the 
sight  of  God  as  hateful  as  more  glaring  sin  ;  the  lesson  that  a 
life  of  sinful  and  impenitent  respectability  may  be  no  less  deadly  and 
dangerous    than    a    life    of    open    shame.       But    meanwhile    the    touching 

1  There  is  a  contrast  between  the  mere  "kiss"  and  "eagerly  kissing"  (ver.  45). 

2  Verse  50,  not  only  "  in,"  but  "  lo  or  for  peace." 


220  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

words  of    an    English    poet    may    serve    as    the    best    comment    on    this 
beautiful  incident : — 

"  She  sat  and  wept  beside  his  feet;  the  weight 
Of  sin  oppressed  her  heart;  for  all  the  blame, 
And  the  poor  malice  of  the  worldly  shame, 
To  her  were  past,  extinct,  and  out  of  date; 
Only  the  sin  remained — the  leprous  state. 
She  would  be  melted  by  the  heat  of  love, 
By  (ires  far  fiercer  than  are  blown  to  prove 
And  purge  the  silver  ore  adulterate. 
She  sat  and  wept,  and  with  her  untressed  hair. 
Still  wiped  the  feet  she  was  so  blessed  to  touch; 
And  He  wiped  off  the  soiling  of  despair 
From  her  sweet  soul,  because  she  loved  so  much."' 

An  ancient  tradition — especially  prevalent  in  the  Western  Church, 
and  followed  by  the  translators  of  our  English  version — a  tradition  which, 
though  it  must  ever  remain  uncertain,  is  not  in  itself  improbable,  and 
cannot  be  disproved — identifies  this  woman  with  Mary  of  Magdala,  "out 
of  whom  Jesus  cast  seven  devils."'  This  exorcism  is  not  elsewhere  alluded 
to,  and  it  would  be  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  genius  of  Hebrew 
phraseology  if  the  expression  had  been  applied  to  her,  in  consequence  of 
a  passionate  nature  and  an  abandoned  life.  The  Talmudists  have  much 
to  say  respecting  her — her  wealth,  her  extreme  beauty,  her  braided  locks, 
her  shameless  profligacy,  her  husband  Pappus,  and  her  paramour  Pandera;^ 
but  all  that  we  really  know  of  the  Magdalene  from  Scripture  is  the  deep 
enthusiasm  of  devotion  and  gratitude  which  attached  her,  heart  and  soul, 
to  her  Saviour's  service.  In  the  chapter  of  St.  Luke  which  follows  this 
incident  she  is  mentioned  first  among  the  women  who  accompanied  Jesus 
in  His  wanderings,  and  ministered  to  Him  of  their  substance  ;■♦  and  it  may 
be  that  in  the  narrative  of  the  incident  at  Simon's  house  her  name  was 
suppressed,  out  of  that  delicate  consideration  which,  in  other  passages, 
makes  the  Evangelists  suppress  the  condition  of  Matthew  and  the  name 

1  Hartley  Coleridge. 

2  This  tradition  is  alluded  to  by  Ambrose,  Jerome  (in  Matt.  xxvi.  6),  and  Augustine,  and  accepted  by 
Gregory  the  Great.  Any  one  who  has  read  my  friend  Professor  Plumptre's  article  on  "  Mary  Magdalene," 
in  Smith's  Diet,  of  ihi  Bible,  will  perhaps  be  surprised  that  I  accept  even  the  possibility  of  this  identification, 
which  he  calls  "  a  figment  utterly  baseless."  I  have  partly  answered  the  supposed  objections  to  the  iden- 
tification in  the  text,  and  mainly  differ  from  Professor  Plumptre  in  his  view  of  the  "  seven  demons."  This, 
he  says,  is  incompatible  with  the  life  implied  by  the  word  "  sinner."  To  which  I  reply  by  referring  to 
Luke  iv.  33  ;  Matt.  x.  i,  &c.  Gregory  the  Great  rightly  held  that  the  "  seven  demons  "  may  have  been  ap- 
plied to  the  "  many  sins,"  for  Lightfoot  has  shown  that  the  Rabbis  ascribed  drunkenness  and  lust  to  the 
immediate  agency  of  demons. 

3  The  reader  will,  I  am  sure,  excuse  me  from  the  tedious  task  of  reproducing  all  these  venomous  and 
absurd  fictions,  which  are  as  devoid  of  literary  as  they  are  of  historic  value. 

4  Chap.  viii.  2. 


THE  SINNER  AND  THE  PHARISEE.  221 

of  Peter.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  the  woman  who  was  a  sinner  went  to 
find  the  peace  which  Christ  had  promised  to  her  troubled  conscience  in  a 
life  of  deep  seclusion  and  obscurity,  which  meditated  in  silence  on  the 
merciful  forgiveness  of  her  Lord  ;  but  in  the  popular  consciousness  she 
will  till  the  end  of  time  be  identified  with  the  Magdalene  whose  very 
name  has  passed  into  all  civilized  languages  as  a  synonym  for  accepted 
penitence  and  pardoned  sin.  The  traveler  who,  riding  on  the  shores  of 
Gennesareth,  comes  to  the  ruinous  tower  and  solitary  palm-tree  that  mark 
the  Arab  village  of  EI  Mejdel,  will  involuntarily  recall  this  old  tradition 
of  her  whose  sinful  beauty  and  deep  repentance  have  made  the  name  ol 
Magdala  so  famous ;  and  though  the  few  miserable  peasant  huts  are  squalid 
and  ruinous,  and  the  inhabitants  are  living  in  ignorance  and  degradation, 
he  will  still  look  with  interest  and  emotion  on  a  site  which  brings  back 
into  his  memory  one  of  the  most  signal  proofs  that  no  one— not  e^'ven  the 
most  fallen  and  the  most  despised— is  regarded  as  an  outcast  by  Him 
whose  very  work  it  was  to  seek  and  save  that  which  was  lost.  Perhaps 
in  the  balmy  air  of  Gennesareth,  in  the  brightness  of  the  sky  above  his 
head,  in  the  sound  of  the  singing  birds  which  fills  the  air,  in  the  masses 
of  purple  blossom  which  at  some  seasons  of  the  year  festoon  these  huts 
of  mud,  he  may  see  a  type  of  the  love  and  tenderness  which  is  large  and 
rich  enough  to  encircle  with  the  grace  of  fresh  and  heavenly  beau^  the 
ruins  of  a  once  earthly  and  desecrated  life. 


CHAPTER     XXII. 


JESUS    AS    HE    LIVED    IN    GALILEE. 


"For  the  suffering  of  Christ  is  our  deliverance  from  suffering  and  His  tear  our  joy. 

■^>:ll.   ...ill.  ^..' 


-Athanasuts. 


T  IS  to  this  period  of  our  Lord's  earlier  ministry 
that  those  mission  journeys  belong — those  circuits 
through  the  towns  and  villages  of  Galilee,  teach- 
ing, and  preaching,  and  performing  works  of 
mercy — which  are  so  frequently  alluded  to  in 
the  first  three  Gospels,  and  which  are  specially 
mentioned  at  this  point  of  the  narrative  by  the 
Evangelist  St.  Luke.  "He  walked  in  Galilee.'" 
It  was  the  brightest,  hopefulest,  most  active 
episode  in  His  life.  At  this  point,  therefore, 
one  or  two  facts  and  features  of  His  life  on 
earth  may  fitly  be   introduced. 

Let  us  then  suppose  ourselves  to  mingle 
with  any  one  fragment  of  those  many  multi- 
tudes which  at  this  period  awaited  Him  at  every  point  of  His  career, 
and  let  us  gaze  on   Him  as  they  did  when   He  was  a  man  on  earth.' 

We  are  on  that  little  plain  ^    that  runs  between  the  hills  of   Zebulon 

1  Matt.  iv.  23  ;  ix.  35  ;  Mark  i.  39  ;  Luke  iv.  15,  44  ;  John  vii.  i: — "  He  was  teaching  in  walking.''  In 
this  part  of  the  narrative  1  mainly  follow  St.  Luke's  order,  only  varying  from  it  where  there  seems  reason 
for  doing  so.  I  have,  however,  already  stated  my  disbelief  in  the  possibility  of  a  final  harmony  ;  and  in 
a  few  instances  where  no  special  order  is  discernible  in  the  narrative  of  the  Evangelists,  I  have  followed 
a  plan  distinctly  sanctioned  by  the  practice  of  St.  Matthew — viz.,  that  of  grouping  together  events  which 
have  a  subjective  connection.  Any  one  who  has  long  and  carefully  studied  the  Gospels  has  probably 
arrived  at  a  strong  opinion  as  to  the  possible  or  even  probable  order  of  events  ;  but  when  he  sees  no  tw» 
independent  harmonists  agreeing  even  in  the  common  chronological  principles  or  data  (t.^.,  even  as  to  the 
number  of  years  in  Christ's  ministry),  he  will  probably  feel  that  the  order  he  adopts  will  carry  no  convic- 
tion to  others,  however  plausible  it  may  seem  to  himself.  I  agree,  however,  more  nearly  with  Lange  and 
Stier — though  by  no  means  adopting  their  entire  arrangement — than  with  most  other  writers. 

2  The  general  idea  of  this  chapter,  and  most  of  its  details,  were  suggested  to  me  by  an  exceedingly 
beautiful  and  interesting  little  tract  of  Dr.  F.  Delitzsch,  called  SeAei  weUh  ein  Mensch.  Some  may  perhaps 
consider  that  both  Dr.  Delitzsch  and  I  have  given  too  much  scope  to  the  imagination  ;  but,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  or  two  references  to  early  tradition,  they  will  scarcely  find  an  incident,  or  even  an  expression, 
which  is  not  sanctioned  by  notices  in  the  Evangelists. 

3  Asochis  ;  now  called  El  Buttauf. 


JESUS  AS  HE  LIVED  IN  GALILEE.  223 

and  Naphtall,  somewhere  between  the  villages,  of  Kefr  Kenna  and  the 
so-called  Kana  el-Jalil.  A  sea  of  corn,  fast  yellowing  to  the  harvest,  is 
around  us,  and  the  bright,  innumerable  flowers  that  broider  the  wayside 
are  richer  and  larger  than  those  of  home.  The  path  on  which  we  stand 
leads  in  one  direction  to  Accho  and  the  coast,  in  the  other  over  the  sum- 
[  mit  of  Hattin  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  The  land  is  lovely  with  all  the 
loveliness  of  a  spring  day  in  Palestine,  but  the  hearts  of  the  eager,  excited 
crowd,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  stand,  are  too  much  occupied  by  one 
absorbing  thought  to  notice  its  beauty  ;  for  some  of  them  are  blind,  and 
sick,  and  lame,  and  they  know  not  whether  to-day  a  finger  of  mercy,  a 
word  of  healing — nay,  even  the  touch  of  the  garment  of  this  great  Un- 
known Prophet  as  He  passes  by — may  not  alter  and  gladden  the  whole 
complexion  of  their  future  lives.  And  farther  back,  at  a  little  distance 
from  the  crowd,  standing  among  the  wheat,  with  covered  lips,  and  warn- 
ing off  all  who  approached  them  with  the  cry,  Tame,  Tame — "Unclean! 
unclean!" — clad  in  mean  and  scanty  garments,  are  some  fearful  and  mu- 
tilated figures  whom,  with  a  shudder,  we  recognize  as  lepers. 

The  comments  of  the  crowd  show  that  many  different  motives  have 
brought  them  together.  Some  are  there  from  interest,  some  from  curi- 
osity, some  from  the  vulgar  contagion  of  enthusiasm  which  they  cannot 
themselves  explain.  Marvelous  tales  of  Him — of  His  mercy,  of  His 
power,  of  His  gracious  words,  of  His  mighty  deeds — are  passing  from 
lip  to  lip,  mingled,  doubtless,  with  suspicions  and  calumnies.  One  or  two 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  who  are  present,  holding  themselves  a  little  apart 
from  the  crowd,  whisper  to  each  other  their  perplexities,  their  indigna- 
tion, their  alarm. 

Suddenly  over  the  rising  ground,  at  no  great  distance,  is  seen  the 
cloud  of  dust  which  marks  an  approaching  company  ;  and  a  young  boy  of 
Magdala  or  Bethsaida,  heedless  of  the  scornful  reproaches  of  the  Scribes, 
points  in  that  direction,  and  runs  excitedly  forward  with  the  shout  of 
Malka  Meshichah!  Malka  Meshtchah  ! — "the  King  Messiah!  the  King 
Messiah  !  " — which  even  on  youthful  lips  must  have  quickened  the  heart- 
beats of  a  simple  Galilean  throng.' 

And  now  the  throng  approaches.  It  is  a  motley  multitude  of  young 
and  old,  composed  mainly  of  peasants,  but  with  others  of  higher  rank 
interspersed  in  their  loose  array — here  a  frowning  Pharisee,   there  a  gaily 

1  I  take  the  supposed  incident  in  part  from  Dr.  Delitzsch  ;  and  after  the  announcement  of  John  the 
Baptist  (John  i.  26,  32,  &c.),  and  such  incidents  as  those  recorded  in  Luke  iv.  41,  the  surmise  of  John  iv. 
29;  vii.  41  must  have  been  on  many  lips. 


224  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

clad  Herodian  whispering  to  some  Greek  merchant  or  Roman  soldier  his 
scoffing  comments  on  the  enthusiasm  of  the  crowd.  But  these  are  the 
few,  and  almost  every  eye  of  that  large  throng  is  constantly  directed 
towards  One  who  stands  in  the  center  of  the  separate  group  which  the 
crowd  surrounds. 

In  the  front  of  this  group  walk  some  of  the  newly-chosen  Apostles  : 
behind  are  others,  among  whom  there  is  one  whose  restless  glance  and 
saturnine  countenance  '  accord  but  little  with  that  look  of  openness  and 
innocence  which  stamps  his  comrades  as  honest  men.  Some  of  those 
who  are  looking  on  whisper  that  he  is  a  certain  Judas  of  Kerioth,  almost 
the  only  follower  of  Jesus  who  is  not  a  Galilean.  A  little  further  in  the 
rear,  behind  the  remainder  of  the  Apostles,  are  four  or  five  women, "^  some 
on  foot,  some  on  mules,  among  whom,  though  they  are  partly  veiled, 
there  are  some  who  recognize  the  once  wealthy  and  dissolute  but  now 
repentant  Mary  of  Magdala  ;  and  Salome,  the  wife  of  the  fisherman 
Zabdia  ;  and  one  of  still  higher  wealth  and  position,  Joanna,  the  wife  of 
Chuza,  steward  of  Herod  Antipas.^ 

But  He  whom  all  eyes  seek  is  in  the  very  center  of  the  throng ; 
and  though  at  His  right  is  Peter  of  Bethsaida,  and  at  His  left  the  more 
youthful  figure  of  John,  yet  every  glance  is  absorbed  by  Him  alone. 

1  In  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  there  is  a  notion  that  Judas  had  once  been  a  demoniac,  whom  Jesus,  as  a 
boy,  had  healed.  For  the  legendary  notion  of  his  aspect,  see  the  story  of  St.  Brandan,  so  exquisitely  told 
by  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  : — 

"At  last  (it  was  the  Christmas  night ; 
Stars  shown  after  a  day  of  storm) 
He  sees  float  by  an  iceberg  white, 
And  on  it — Christ ! — a  living  form  ! 

"That  furtive  mien,  that  scowling  eye. 
Of  hair  that  red  and  tufted  fell ; 
It  is — oh,  where  shall  Brandan  fly? — 
The  traitor  Judas,  out  of  hell." 

2  Perhaps  more  (Luke  viii.  3,  "maay  others").  It  is  curious  that  no  mention  is  made  of  the  wife  o' 
Peter  or  of  the  other  married  Apostles  (i  Cor.  ix.  5).  Of  Susanna  here  mentioned  by  St  Luke,  absolutely 
nothing  further  is  known.  Mary,  the  mother  of  James  the  Less,  was  another  of  these  ministering  women  ; 
and  it  is  an  illustration  of  the  extreme  paucity  of  names  among  the  Jews,  and  the  confusion  that  results 
from  it,  that  there  are  perhaps  as  many  as  seven  Marys  in  the  Gospel  History  alone.  The  fact  that  they 
were  ministering  to  Him  of  their  substance  shows,  among  other  circumstances,  that  there  was  no  absolute 
community  of  goods  in  the  little  band. 

3  The  Blessed  Virgin  was  not  one  of  this  ministering  company.  The  reason  for  her  absence  from  it 
is  not  given.  It  is  not  impossible  that  a  certain  amount  of  constraint  was  put  upon  her  by  the  "  brethren 
of  the  Lord,"  who  on  three  distinct  occasions  (Matt.  xii.  46  :  Mark  iii.  21  ;  John  vii.  3  ;  see  pp.  213,  246) 
interfered  with  Jesus,  and  on  one  of  those  occasions  seem  to  have  worked  upon  the  susceptibilities  even  of 
His  mother.  Meanwhile  her  absence  from  Christ's  journeyings  is  an  incidental  proof  of  the  deep  seclusion 
in  which  she  evidently  lived — a  seclusion  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  silence  of  the  Gospels  respecting 
her,  and  which  accords  most  accurately  with  the  incidental  notices  of  her  humble  and  meditative 
character. 


CSP?¥ifi^-ls. 


JESUS  AS  HE  LIVED  IN  GALILEE.  225 

He  is  not  clothed  in  soft  raiment  of  byssus  or  purple,  like  Herod's 
courtiers,  or  the  luxurious  friends  of  the  Procurator  Pilate  :  He  does  not 
wear  the  white  ephod  of  the  Levite,  or  the  sweeping  robes  of  the  Scribe. 
There  are  not,  on  His  arm  and  forehead,  the  tcphillin  or  phylacteries,' 
which  the  Pharisees  make  so  broad  ;  and  though  there  is  at  each  corner 
of  His  dress  the  fringe  and  blue  thread  which  the  Law  enjoins,  it  is  not 
worn  of  the  ostentatious  size  affected  by  those  who  wished  to  parade 
the  scrupulousness  of  their  obedience.  He  is  in  the  ordinary  dress  of 
His  time  and  country.  He  is  not  bareheaded — as  painters  usually  repre- 
sent Him — for  to  move  about  bareheaded  in  the  Syrian  sunlight  is 
impossible, '  but  a  white  keffiyeh,  such  as  is  worn  to  this  day,  covers  his 
hair,  fastened  by  an  aghal,  or  fillet,  round  the  top  of  the  head,  and 
falling  back  over  the  neck  and  shoulders.  A  large  blue  outer  robe  or 
tallith,  pure  and  clean,  but  of  the  simplest  materials,  covers  His  entire 
person,  and  only  shows  occasional  glimpses  of  the  ketoneth,  a  seamless 
woolen  tunic  of  the  ordinary  striped  texture,  so  common  in  the  East, 
which  is  confined  by  a  girdle  round  the  waist,  and  which  clothes  Him 
from  the  neck  almost  down  to  the  sandaled  feet.  But  the  simple  gar- 
ments do  not  conceal  the  King;  and  though  in  His  bearing  there  is 
nothing  of  the  self-conscious  haughtiness  of  the  Rabbi,  yet,  in  its  natural 
nobleness  and  unsought  grace,  it  is  such  as  instantly  suffices  to  check 
every  rude  tongue  and  overawe  every  wicked  thought. 

And  His  aspect?  He  is  a  man  of  middle  size,  and  of  about  thirty 
years  of  age,  on  whose  face  the  purity  and  charm  of  youth  are  mingled 
with  the  thoughtfulness  and  dignity  of  manhood.  His  hair,  which  legend 
has  compared  to  the  color  of  wine,  is  parted  in  the  middle  of  the  fore- 
head, and  flows  down  over  the  neck.  His  features  are  paler  and  of  a 
more  Hellenic  type  than  the  weather-bronzed  and  olive-tinted  faces  of 
the  hardy  fishermen  who  are  His  Apostles;  but  though  those  features 
have  evidently  been  marred  by  sorrow — though  it  is  manifest  that  those 
eyes,  whose  pure  and  indescribable  glance  seems  to  read  the  very  secrets 

1  We  cannot  believe  that  Christ  sanctioned  by  His  own  practice — at  any  rate,  in  manhood — the  idle 
and  superstitious  custom  of  wearing  those  little  text-boxes,  which  had  in  all  probability  originated  merely 
in  an  unintelligent  and  slavishly  literal  interpretation  of  a  metaphorical  command.  For  further  informa- 
tion about  the /f//ij7/!H,  I  may  refer  the  reader  to  my  article  on  'Frontlets"  in  Dr.  Smith's  ZJ/rf.  0/ the 
Bible,  or  to  the  still  fuller  article  by  Dr.  Ginsburg  in  Kitto's  Bibl.  Cyclop,   entitled  "  Phylacteries." 

2  This  must  surely  have  occurred  to  every  one  after  a  moment's  reflection,  yet,  strange  to  say,  I  can- 
not recall  one  of  the  great  works  of  mediaeval  art  in  which  the  Saviour  is  depicted  with  covered  head.  The 
ordinary  articles  of  dress  now  are  the  inner  shirt  ;  open  gown  of  silk  or  cotton,  overlapping  in  front  ; 
girdle  ;  a  strong,  coarse  cloak,  in  which  the  wearer  usually  sleeps ;  and  fez.  (See  Thomson,  Land  and 
Book,  I.,  ch.  ix.) 

15 


226  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  the  heart,  have  often  glowed  through  tears — yet  no  man,  whose  soul 
has  not  been  eaten  away  by  sin  and  selfishness,  can  look  unmoved  and 
unawed  on  the  divine  expression  of  that  calm  and  patient  face.  Yes, 
this  is  He  of  whom  Moses  and  the  Prophets  did  speak — Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  the  Son  of  Mary,  and  the  Son  of  David ;  and  the  Son  of 
Man,  and  the  Son  of  God.  Our  eyes  have  seen  the  King  in  His 
beauty.  We  have  beheld  His  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only-begotten 
of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  And  having  seen  Him  we  can 
well  understand  how,  while  He  spake,  a  certain  woman  of  the  company 
lifted  up  her  voice  and  said,  "  Blessed  is  the  womb  that  bare  Thee,  and 
the  paps  that  Thou  hast  sucked!"  "Yea,  rather  blessed,"  He  answered, 
in  words  full  of  deep  sweet  mystery,  "  are  they  that  hear  the  word  of 
God  and  keep  it." 

One  or  two  facts  and  features  of  His  life  on  earth  may  here  be 
fitly  introduced. 

1.  First,  then,  it  was  a  life  of  poverty.  Some  of  the  old  Messianic 
prophecies,  which  the  Jews  in  general  so  little  understood,  had  already 
indicated  His  voluntary  submission  to  a  humble  lot."  "Though  He  were 
rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  He  became  poor."  He  was  born  in  the  cavern- 
stable,  cradled  in  the  manger.  His  mother  offered  for  her  purification 
the  doves  which  were  the  offering  of  the  poor.  The  flight  into  Egypt 
was  doubtless  accompanied  with  many  a  hardship,  and  when  he  returned 
it  was  to  live  as  a  carpenter,  and  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  in  the  despised 
provincial  village.  It  was  as  a  poor  wandering  teacher,  possessing  noth- 
ing, that  He  traveled  through  the  land.  With  the  words,  "  Blessed  are 
the  poor  in  spirit,"  He  began  His  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  and  He  made 
it  the  chief  sign  of  the  opening  dispensation  that  to  the  poor  the  Gospel 
was  being  preached.  It  was  a  fit  comment  on  this  His  poverty,  that 
after  but  three  short  years  of  His  public  ministry  He  was  sold  by  one 
of  His  own  Apostles  for  the  thirty  shekels  which  were  the  price  of  the 
meanest  slave. 

2.  And  the  simplicity  of  His  life  corresponded  to  its  external  poverty. 
Never  in  His  life  did  He  possess  a  roof  which  He  could  call  His  own. 
The  humble  abode  at  Nazareth  was  but  shared  with    numerous    brothers 

I  It  seems  impossible  to  trace  the  date  or  origin  of  the  later  Jewish  conception  of  a  suffering  Messias, 
the  descendant  of  Joseph  or  Ephraim,  which  is  found  in  Zo/iar,  Bab.  Targ.  Cant.  iv.  5,  &c.  It  is  clear 
that  the  nation  had  not  realized  the  point  of  view  which  was  familiar  to  the  Apostles  after  Pentecost  (see 
Acts  iii.  18  ;  xvii.  3 ;  xxvi.  22,  23),  and  which  Jesus  had  so  often  taught  them  (Matt.  xvi.  21  ;  xvii.  10 — 12  ;. 
Luke  xvii.  25;  xxiv.  25 — 27,  46)  to  regard  as  the  fulfillment  of  olden  prophecy  (Ps.  xxii.  ;  Isa.  1.  6; 
liii.  2,  &c.). 


JESUS  AS  HE  LIVED  IN  GALILLi:.  227 

and  sisters.  Even  the  house  in  Capernaum  which  He  so  often  visited 
was  not  his  own  possession  ;  it  was  lent  Him  by  one  of  His  disciples. 
There  never  belonged  to  Him  one  foot's-breadth  of  the  earth  which  He 
came  to  save.  We  never  hear  that  any  of  the  beggars,  who  in  every 
Eastern  country  are  so  numerous  and  so  importunate,  asked  Him  for 
alms.  Had  they  done  so  He  might  have  answered  with  Peter,  "  Silver 
and  gold  have  I  none,  but  such  as  I  have  that  give  I  thee."  His  food 
was  of  the  plainest.  He  was  ready  indeed,  when  invited,  to  join  in  the 
innocent  social  happiness  of  Simon's,  or  Levi's,  or  Martha's,  or  the 
bridegroom  of  Cana's  feast  ;  but  His  ordinary  food  was  as  simple  as  that 
of  the  humblest  peasant — bread  of  the  coarsest  quality, "  fish  caught  in 
the  lake  and  broiled  in  embers  on  the  shore,  and  sometimes  a  piece  of 
honeycomb,  probably  of  the  wild  honey  which  was  then  found  abundantly 
in  Palestine.  Small  indeed  was  the  gossamer  thread  of  semblance  on 
which  his  enemies  could  support  the  weight  of  their  outrageous  calumny, 
"Behold  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber."  And  yet  Jesus,  though  poor,  was 
not  a  pauper.  He  did  not  for  one  moment  countenance  (as  Sakya  Mouni 
did)  the  life  of  beggary,  or  say  one  word  which  could  be  perverted  into 
a  recommendation  of  that  degrading  squalor  which  some  religious 
teachers  have  represented  as  the  perfection  of  piety ;  but  He  and  the 
little  company  of  His  followers  lived  on  their  lawful  possessions  or  the 
produce  of  their  own  industry,  and  even  had  a  bag  =  or  cash-box  of  their 
own,  both  for  their  own  use  and  for  their  charities  to  others.  From 
this  they  provided  the  simple  necessaries  of  the  Paschal  feast,  and  dis- 
tributed what  they  could  to  the  poor ;  only  Christ  does  not  Himself 
seem  to  have  given  money  to  the  poor,  because  He  gave  them  richer 
and  nobler  gifts  than  could  be  compared  with  gold  or  silver.  Yet  even 
the  little  money  which  they  wanted  was  not  always  forthcoming,  and  when 
the  collectors  of  the  trivial  sum  demanded  from  the  very  poorest  for  the 
service  of  the  Temple,  came  to  Peter,  for  the  didrachma  which  was  alone 
required,  neither  he  nor  his  Master  had  the  sum  at  hand.  ^  The  Son  of 
Man  had  no  earthly  possession  besides  the  clothes  He  wore. 

1  So  we  infer  from  the  "  barley  loaves  "  of  John  vi.  9.  Barley  bread  was  so  little  palatable  that  it 
was  given  by  way  of  punishment  to  soldiers  who  had  incurred  disgrace.  That  the  Jews  had  a  similar 
feeling  appears  from  an  anecdote  in  Pesachim.  Johanan  said,  "  There  is  an  excellent  barley  harvest." 
They  answered,   '^  Tell  that  to  horses  and  asses."     (See   Kuinoel  on  John  vi.  9.) 

2  John  xii.  6,  properly  a  little  box  in  which  flute-players  kept  the  tongues  or  reeds  of  their  flute. 
Perhaps,  as  Mr.  Monro  suggests  to  me,  a  box  may  have  been  so  called  from  the  resemblance  in  shape  to  a 
reed  mouthpiece,  of  which  the  essential  point  is  an  elastic  valve  which  will  open  inwards. 

3  Matt.  xvii.  24 — 27. 


228  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

3.  And  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  life  of  toil — of  toil  from  boyhood 
upwards,  in  the  shop  of  the  carpenter,  to  aid  in  maintaining  Himself  and 
His  family  by  honest  and  noble  labor ;  of  toil  afterwards  to  save  the 
world.  We  have  seen  that  "  He  went  about  doing  good,"  and  that  this, 
which  is  the  epitome  of  His  public  life,  constitutes  also  its  sublimest 
originality.  The  insight  which  we  have  gained  already,  and  shall  gain 
still  further,  into  the  manner  in  which  His  days  were  spent,  shows  us 
how  overwhelming  an  amount  of  ever-active  benevolence  was  crowded 
into  the  brief  compass  of  the  hours  of  light.  At  any  moment  He  was  at 
the  service  of  any  call,  whether  it  came  from  an  inquirer  who  longed  to 
be  taueht,  or  from  a  sufferer  who  had  faith  to  be  healed.  Teachine, 
preaching,  traveling,  doing  works  of  mercy,  bearing  patiently  with  the 
fretful  impatience  of  the  stiff-necked  and  the  ignorant,  enduring  without  a 
murmur  the  incessant  and  selfish  pressure  of  the  multitude — work  like  this 
so  absorbed  his  time  and  energy  that  we  are  told,  more  than  once,  that 
so  many  were  coming  and  going  as  to  leave  no  leisure  even  to  eat.  For 
Himself  He  seemed  to  claim  no  rest  except  the  quiet  hours  of  night  and 
silence,  when  He  retired  so  often  to  pray  to  His  Heavenly  Father,  amid 
the  mountain  solitudes  which   He  loved  so  well. 

4.  And  it  was  a  life  of  health.  Among  its  many  sorrows  and  trials, 
sickness  alone  was  absent.  We  hear  of  His  healing  multitudes  of  the 
sick — we  never  hear  that  He  was  sick  Himself.  It  is  true  that  "the 
golden  Passional  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah"  says  of  Him:  "Surely  He  hath 
borne  our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows  ;  yet  we  did  esteem  Him  stricken, 
smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted.  But  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions ;  He  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities  ;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace 
was  upon  Him,  and  with  His  stripes  we  are  healed;"  but  the  best  ex- 
planation of  that  passage  has  been  already  supplied  from  St.  Matthew, 
that  He  suffered  with  those  whom  He  saw  suffer."  He  was  touched  with 
a  feeling  of  our  infirmities  ;  His  divine  sympathy  made  those  sufferings 
His  own.  Certain  it  is  that  the  story  of  His  life  and  death  shows  ex- 
ceptional powers  of  physical  endurance.  No  one  who  was  not  endowed 
with  perfect  health  could  have  stood  out  against  the  incessant  and  wear- 
ing demands  of  such  daily  life  as  the  Gospels  describe.  Above  all,  He 
seems  to  have  possessed  that  blessing  of  ready  sleep  which  is  the  best 
natural  antidote  to  fatigue,  and  the  best  influence  to  calm  the  over- 
wearied mind,  and  "  knit  up  the  raveled    sleeve  of   care."     Even    on   the 

I  Matt.  viii.   17. 


JESUS  AS  HE  LIVED   IN  GALILEE.  229 

wave-lashed  deck  of  the  little  fishing-boat  as  it  was  tossed  on  the  stormy 
sea,  He  could  sleep,  with  no  better  bed  or  pillow  than  the  hard  leather- 
covered  boss  that  served  as  the  steerman's  cushion.'  And  often  in  those 
nights  spent  under  the  starry  sky,  in  the  wilderness,  and  on  the  mount- 
ain-top, He  can  have  had  no  softer  resting-place  than  the  grassy  turf, 
no  other  covering  than  the  tallith,  or  perhaps  some  striped  abba,  such  as 
often  forms  the  sole  bed  of  the  Arab  at  the  present  day.  And  we  shall 
see  in  the  last  sad  scene  how  the  same  strength  of  constitution  and  en- 
durance,  even  after  all  that  He  had  undergone,  enabled  Him  to  hold 
out — after  a  sleepless  night  and  a  most  exhausting  day — under  fifteen 
hours  of  trial  and  torture  and  the  long-protracted  agony  of  a  bitter  death. 
5.  And,  once  more,  it  must  have  been  a  life  of  sorroiu ;  for  He  is 
rightly  called  the  "  Man  of  Sorrows."  And  yet  we  think  that  there  is  a 
possibility  of  error  here.  The  terms  "  sorrow "  and  "  joy  "  are  ver^-  rela- 
tive, and  we  may  be  sure  that  if  there  was  crushing  sorrow — the  sorrow 
of  sympathy  with  those  who  suffered, =  the  sorrow  of  rejection  by  those 
whom  He  loved,  the  sorrow  of  being  hated  by  those  whom  He  came  to 
save,  the  sorrows  of  One  on  whom  were  laid  the  iniquities  of  the  world, 
the  sorrows  of  the  last  long  agony  upon  the  cross,  when  it  seemed  as  if 
even  His  Father  had  forsaken  Him — yet  assuredly  also  there  was  an 
abounding  joy.  For  the  worst  of  all  sorrows,  the  most  maddening  of  all 
miseries — which  is  the  consciousness  of  alienation  from  God,  the  sense  of 
shame  and  guilt  and  inward  degradation,  the  frenzy  of  self-loathing  by 
which,  as  by  a  scourge  of  fire,  the  abandoned  soul  is  driven  to  an  in- 
curable despair — thai  was  absent,  not  only  in  its  extreme  forms,  but  even 
in  the  faintest  of  its  most  transient  assoilments  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  joy  of  an  unsullied  conscience,  the  joy  of  a  stainless  life,  the  joy  of 
a  soul  absolutely  and  infinitely  removed  from  every  shadow  of  baseness, 
and  every  fleck  of  guilt,  the  joy  of  an  existence  wholly  devoted  to  the 
service  of  God  and  the  love  of  man — ikis  was  ever  present  to  Him  in 
its  fullest  influences.  It  is  hardly  what  the  world  calls  joy  ;  it  was  not 
the  merriment  of  the  frivolous,  like  the  transient  flickering  of  April  sun- 
shine upon  the  shallow  stream ;  it  was  not  the  laughter  of  fools,  which  is 
as  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot — of  this  kind  of  joy,  life  has  but 
little  for  a  man  who  feels  all  that  life  truly  means.      But,  as    is    said    by 

1  As  usual,  we  owe  this  graphic  touch,  so  evidently  derived  from   an  eye-witness,  to  the  narrative  of 
St.  Mark  (iv.  38). 

2  Matt  ix.  36 ;  xiv.  14 ;  xv.  32  ;  xx.  34 ;  Mark  i.  41  ;  Luke  vii.  13  ;  Mark  iii.  5  ;  vii.  34  ;  John  xi.  33,  35  ; 
Luke  xix.  41. 


230  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  great  Latin  Father,  "  Crede  mihi  res  severa  est  veriini  gaudium" 
("Believe  me,  a  serious  thing  is  true  joy"),  and  of  that  deep  well-spring 
of  life  which  lies  in  the  heart  of  things  noble,  and  pure,  and  permanent, 
and  true,  even  the  Man  of  Sorrows  could  drink  large  draughts.  And 
though  we  are  never  told  that  He  laughed,  while  we  are  told  that  once 
he  wept,  and  that  once  he  sighed,  and  that  more  than  once  He  was 
troubled ;  yet  He  who  threw  no  shadow  of  discountenance  on  social 
meetings  and  innocent  festivity,  could  not  have  been  without  that  inward 
happiness  which  sometimes  shone  even  upon  his  countenance,  and  which 
we  often  trace  in  the  tender  and  almost  playful  irony  of  His  words.' 
"In  that  hour,"  we  are  told  of  one  occasion  in  His  life,  "Jesus  rejoiced" 
— or,  as  it  should  rather  be,  exulted — "in  spirit."'  Can  we  believe  that 
this  rejoicing  took  place  once  alone? 

I  If  we  could  attach  any  importance  to  the  strange  story  quoted  by  Irenaeus  as  having  been  derived 
by  Papias  from  hearers  of  St.  John,  we  should  only  see  in  it  a  marked  instance  of  this  playful  and  imagin- 
ative manner  in  speaking  at  unconstrained  moments  to  the  simplest  and  truest-hearted  of  his  followers. 
The  words,  which  have  evidently  been  reflected  and  refracted  by  the  various  media  through  which  they 
have  reached  us,  may  have  been  uttered  in  a  sort  of  divine  irony,  as  though  they  were  a  playful  descrip- 
tion of  Messianic  blessings  to  be  fulfilled,  not  in  the  hard  Judaic  sense,  but  in  a  truer  and  more  spiritual 
sense.  "The  Lord  taught,  The  days  will  come  in  which  vines  shall  spring  up,  each  having  ten  thousand 
stems,  and  on  each  stem  ten  thousand  branches,  and  on  each  branch  ten  thousand  shoots,  and  on  each 
shoot  ten  thousand  clusters,  and  on  each  cluster  ten  thousand  grapes,  and  each  grape,  when  pressed,  shall 
give  twenty -five  measures  of  wine.  And  when  any  saint  shall  have  seized  one  cluster,  another  shall  cry, 
•  I  am  a  better  cluster  ;  take  me,  through  me  bless  the  Lord '  "  (Westcott).  Eusebius  speaks  of  Papias  as  a 
weak-minded  man  ;  and  this  passage  is  more  like  a  Talmudic  or  Mohammedan  legend  than  a  genuine  remi- 
niscence ;  yet  it  perhaps  admits  of  the  explanation  I  have  given.  The  book  of  Papias  was  called  "  Nar- 
rations of  the  Lord's  sayings,"  and  another  fragment  of  it  which  refers  to  Judas  Iscariot  shows  his 
credulity. 

3  Luke  X.  21. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 


A    GREAT    DAY    IN    THE    LIFE    OF   JESUS. 

"My  mystery  is  for  me,  and  for  the  sons  of  my  house." — Saying  attributed  to  Jesus  in  Clem.  Alex. 

^'^'OC,   ..,,1. ,,  ..I,.  S?.o 

HE  sequence   of  events  in    the   narrative  on  which 
we  are  now  about  to  enter    is    nearly  the  same 
in  the  first  three  Gospels.      Without  neglecting 
any  clear  indications  given  by  the  other  Evangel- 
ists, we  shall,  in  this  part  of    the  life  of    Jesus, 
mainly  follow  the  chronological  guidance  of  St. 
Luke.     The  order  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark 
appears  to  be  much    guided    by  subjective   con- 
siderations.'    Events  in  their  Gospels  are  some- 
times  grouped  together    by  their    moral    or   re- 
ligious bearings.      St.   Luke,  as  is  evident,  pays 
more    attention  to    the  natural    sequence,  although    he    also 
occasionally  allows  a  unity  of    subject    to    supersede    in    his 
arrangement  the  order  of  time.' 

Immediately  after  the  missionary  journey  which  we 
have  described,  St.  Luke  adds  that  when  Jesus  saw  Himself  surrounded 
by  a  great  multitude  out  of  every  city.  He  spake  by  a  parable.^  We 
learn  from  the  two  other  Evangelists  the  interesting  circumstance  that 
this  was  the  first  occasion  on  which  He  taught  in  parables,  and  that  they 
were  spoken  to  the  multitude  who  lined  the  shore  while  our  Lord  sat  in 
His  favorite  pulpit,  the  boat  which  was  kept  for  Him  on  the  Lake.* 

We  might  infer  from  St.   Mark  that    this  teaching  was   delivered  on 
the    afternoon  of    the    day  on  which    He    healed    the    paralytic,  but    the 

1  Papias,  on  the  authority  of  John  the  Elder,  distinctly  says  that  St.  Mark  did  not  write  chronologi- 
cally the  deeds  and  words  of  Christ. 

2  To  make  the  saying  of  Luke  i.  3  mean  "  in  strictly  accurate  sequence,"  is  to  press  it  overduly.  The 
word,  which  is  peculiar  to  St.  Luke,  is  used  quite  vaguely  in  chap.  viii.  i  ;  Acts  iii.  24  ;  xi.  4. 

3  Luke  viii.  4.  The  expression  of  St.  Matthew  (xiii.  i),  "  the  same  day,"  or  as  it  should  be  rather, 
*'  on  that  day,"  looks  more  definite  ;  but  the  events  that  follow  could  not  have  taken  place  on  the  same  day 
as  those  narrated  in  his  previous  chapter  (much  of  which  probably  refers  to  a  later  period  altogether),  aod 
the  same  phrase  is  used  quite  indefinitely  in  Acts  viii.  i. 

4  Matt.  xiii.  2. 


232  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

inference  is  too  precarious  to  be  relied  on.'  All  that  we  can  see  is  that 
this  new  form  of  teaching  was  felt  to  be  necessary  in  consequence  of  the 
state  of  mind  which  had  been  produced  in  some,  at  least,  of  the  hearers 
among  the  multitude.  The  one  emphatic  word  "hearken!"  with  which 
He  prefaced  His  address  prepared  them  for  something  unusual  and 
memorable  in  what  He  was  going  to  say."" 

The  great  mass  of  hearers  must  now  have  been  aware  of  the  general 
features  in  the  new  Gospel  which  Jesus  preached.  Some  self-examination, 
some  earnest  careful  thought  of  their  own  was  now  requisite,  if  they  were 
indeed  sincere  in  their  desire  to  profit  by  His  words.  "Take  heed  how 
ye  hear"  was  the  great  lesson  which  He  would  now  impress.  He  would 
warn  them  against  the  otiose  attention  of  curiosity  or  mere  intellectual 
interest,  and  would  fix  upon  their  minds  a  sense  of  their  moral  responsi- 
bility for  the  effects  produced  by  what  they  heard.  He  would  teach 
them  in  such  a  way  that  the  extent  of  each  hearer's  profit  should  depend 
largely  upon  his  own  faithfulness. 

And,  therefore,  to  show  them  that  the  only  true  fruit  of  good  teach- 
ing is  holiness  of  life,  and  that  there  were  many  dangers  which  might 
prevent  its  growth,  He  told  them  His  first  parable,  the  Parable  of  the 
Sower.  The  imagery  of  it  was  derived,  as  usual,  from  the  objects  im- 
mediately before  His  eyes — the  sown  fields  of  Gennesareth  ;  the  springing 
corn  in  them;  the  hard-trodden  paths  which  ran  through  them,  on  which 
no  corn  could  grow  ;  tlie  innumerable  birds  which  fluttered  over  them 
ready  to  feed  upon  the  grain  ;  the  weak  and  withering  struggle  for  life 
on  the  stony  places ;  the  tangling  growth  of  luxuriant  thistles  in  neglected 
corners;  the  deep  loam  of  the  general  soil,  on  which  already  the  golden 
ears  stood  thick  and  strong,  giving  promise  of  a  sixty  and  hundred-fold 
return  as  they  rippled  under  the  balmy  wind.  To  us,  who  from  infancy 
have  read  the  parable  side  by  side  with  Christ's  own  interpretation  of  it, 
the  meaning  is  singularly  clear  and  plain,  and  we  see  in  it  the  liveliest 
images  of  the  danger  incurred  by  the  cold  and  indifferent,  by  the  impulsive 
and  shallow,  by  the  worldly  and  ambitious,  by  the  preoccupied  and  the 
luxurious,  as  they  listen  to  the  Word  of  God.  But  it  was  not  so  easy  to 
those  who  heard  it.  ^     Even  the  disciples  failed  to  catch  its  full  significance^ 

1  Compare  Mark  ii.  13  ;  iv.  i. 

2  Mark  iv.  3. 

3  It  is  a  part  of  the  divine  boldness  of  Christ's  teaching,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  transcends  in  its 
splendid  paradox  all  ordinary  modes  of  expression,  that  in  His  explanation  of  the  parable,  the  seed  when 
once  sown  is  identified  with  him  who  receives  it  (Mark  iv.  16;  Matt.  xiii.  20,  "/;?  that  was  sown  on  stony 
places" — unfortunately  rendered  in  our  version,  "  he  that  received  thi  seed  into,"  &c.). 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  233 

although  they  reserved  their  request  for  an  explanation  till  they  and  their 
Master  should  be  alone.  It  is  clear  that  parables  like  this,  so  luminous 
to  us,  but  so  difficult  to  these  simple  listeners,  suggested  thoughts  which 
to  them  were  wholly  unfamiliar. ' 

It  seems  clear  that  our  Lord  did  not  on  this  occasion  deliver  all  of 
those  seven  parables — the  parable  of  the  sower,  of  the  tares  of  the  field, 
of  the  grain  of  mustard-seed,  of  the  leaven,  of  the  hid  treasure,  of  the 
pearl,  and  of  the  net — which,  from  a  certain  resemblance  in  their  subjects 
and  consecutiveness  in  their  teaching,  are  here  grouped  together  by  St. 
Matthew.''  Seven  parables ^  delivered  at  once,  and  delivered  without  in- 
terpretation, to  a  promiscuous  multitude  which  He  was  for  the  first  time 
addressing  in  this  form  of  teaching,  would  have  only  tended  to  bewilder 
and  to  distract.  Indeed,  the  expression  of  St.  Mark — "as  they  were  able 
to  hear  it"'' — seems  distinctly  to  imply  a  gradual  and  non-continuous 
course  of  teaching,  which  would  have  lost  its  value  if  it  had  given  to  the 
listeners  more  than  they  were  able  to  remember  and  to  understand.  We 
may  rather  conclude,  from  a  comparison  of  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  that 
the  teaching  of  this  particular  afternoon  contained  no  other  parables,  ex- 
cept perhaps  the  simple  and  closely  analogous  ones  of  the  grain  of  mustard- 
seed,  and  of  the  blade,  the  ear,  and  the  full  corn  in  the  ear,  which  might 
serve  to  encourage  into  patience  those  who  were  expecting  too  rapid  a 
revelation  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  their  own  lives  and  in  the  world; 
and  perhaps,  with  these,  the  similitude  of  the  candle  to  warn  them  not 
to  stifle  the  light  they  had  received,  but  to  remember  that  Great  Light 
which  should  one  day  reveal  all  things,  and  so  to  let  their  light  shine  as 
to  illuminate  both  their  own  paths  in  life,  and  to  shed  radiance  on  the 
souls  of  all  around. 

A  method  of  instruction  so  rare,  so  stimulating,  so  full  of  interest — 
a  method  which,  in  its  unapproachable  beauty  and  finish,  stands 
unrivaled  in  the  annals  of  human  speech — would  doubtless  tend 
to  increase  beyond  measure  the  crowds  that  thronged  to  listen. 
And   through    the  sultry  afternoon    He    continued    to  teach  them,  barely 

1  Matt.  xiii.  i — 23;  Mark  iv.  i — 25;  Luke  viii.  4 — 18. 

2  For  the  scene  of  their  delivery  at  least  changes  in  Matt.  xiii.  34 — 36. 

3  Matt.  xiii.  24 — 30;  Mark  iv.  26 — 34;  Luke  xiii.  iS — 21.  Eight,  if  we  add  Mark  iv.  26 — 29.  They 
illustrate  the  various  reception  (the  sower);  the  mingled  results  (the  tares  and  the  net);  the  priceless  value 
(the  treasure  and  the  pearl);  and  the  slow  gradual  extension  (the  mustard-seed,  the  leaven,  the  springing 
corn)  of  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom. 

4  Mark  iv.  33. 


234  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

succeeding  in  dismissing  them  when  the  evening  was  come, '  A 
sense  of  complete  weariness  and  deep  unspeakable  longing  for 
repose,  and  solitude,  and  sleep,  seems  then  to  have  come  over  our  Lord's 
spirit.  Possibly  the  desire  for  rest  and  quiet  may  have  been  accelerated 
by  one  more  ill-judged  endeavor  of  His  mother  and  His  brethren  to  as- 
sert a  claim  upon  His  actions.-  They  had  not  indeed  been  able  "to  come 
at  Him  for  the  press,"  but  their  attempt  to  do  so  may  have  been  one 
more  reason  for  a  desire  to  get  away,  and  be  free  for  a  time  from  this 
incessant  publicity,  from  these  irreverent  interferences.  At  any  rate,  one 
little  touch,  preserved  for  us  as  usual  by  the  graphic  pen  of  the  Evan- 
gelist St.  Mark,  shows  that  there  was  a  certain  eagerness  and  urgency 
in  His  departure,  as  though  in  His  weariness,  and  in  that  oppression  of 
mind  which  results  from  the  wearing  contact  with  numbers,  He  could 
not  return  to  Capernaum,  but  suddenly  determined  on  a  change  of  plan. 
After  dismissing  the  crowd,  the  disciples  took  Him,  "as  He  was," ^  in 
the  boat,  no  time  being  left,  in  the  urgency  of  His  spirit,  for  preparation 
of  any  kind.  He  yearned  for  the  quiet  and  deserted  loneliness  of  the 
eastern  shore.  The  western  shore  also  is  lonely  now,  and  the  traveler 
will  meet  no  human  being  there  but  a  few  careworn  Fellahin,  or  a  Jew 
from  Tiberias,  or  some  Arab  fishermen,  or  an  armed  and  mounted  Sheykh 
of  some  tribe  of  Bedawin.  But  the  eastern  shore  is  loneliness  itself ;  not 
a  tree,  not  a  village,  not  a  human  being,  not  a  single  habitation  is  visi- 
ble ;  nothing  but  the  low  range  of  hills,  scarred  with  rocky  fissures,  and 
sweeping  down  to  a  narrow  and  barren  strip  which  forms  the  margin  of 
the  Lake.  In  our  Lord's  time  the  contrast  of  this  thinly-inhabited  region 
with  the  busy  and  populous  towns  that  lay  close  together  on  the  Plain 
of  Gennesareth  must  have  been  very  striking  ;  and  though  the  scattered 
population  of  Persea  was  partly  Gentile,  we  shall  find  Him  not  unfre- 
quently  seeking  to  recover  the  tone  and  calm  of  His  burdened  soul  by 
putting  those  six  miles  of  water  between  Himself  and  the  crowds  He 
taught. 

But    before    the    boat    could    be    pushed     off,    another    remarkable 

1  Mark  iv.  35.  If  our  order  of  events  be  correct,  these  incidents  took  place  in  the  early  part  of  March, 
at  which  time  the  weather  in  Palestine  is  often  intensely  hot. 

2  Luke  viii.  19 — 21.  This  cannot  be  the  same  incident  as  that  narrated  in  Matt.  xii.  46 — 50 ;  Mark  iii. 
31 — 35  (v.  p.  282),  as  is  shown  by  the  context  of  those  passages.  It  is,  however,  exactly  the  kind  of  circum- 
stance, calling  forth  the  same  remark,  which  might  naturally  happen  more  than  once  ;  and  although  a  sup- 
position of  perpetually  recurring  similarities  is  only  the  uncritical  resource  of  despairing  harmonists,  it 
may  perhaps  be  admissible  here. 

3  Mark  iv.  36. 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  235 

interruption  occurred.  Three  of  His  listeners  in  succession" — struck  perhaps 
by  the  depth  and  power  of  this  His  new  method  of  teaching,  dazzled 
too  by  this  zenith  of  His  popularity- — desired  or  fancied  that  they  de- 
sired to  attach  themselves  to  Him  as  permanent  disciples.  The  first 
was  a  Scribe,  who,  thinking  no  doubt  that  his  official  rank  would  make 
him  a  most  acceptable  disciple,  exclaimed  with  confident  asservation, 
"  Lord,  I  will  follow  Thee  whithersoever  Thou  goest."  But  in  spite  of 
the  man's  high  position,  in  spite  of  His  glowing  promises.  He  who  cared 
less  than  nothing  for  lip-service,  and  who  preferred  "the  modesty  of 
fearful  duty"  to  the  "rattling-tongue  of  audacious  eloquence,"  coldly 
checked  His  would-be-follower.  He  who  had  called  the  hated  publican 
gave  no  encouragement  to  the  reputable  scribe.  He  did  not  reject  the 
proffered  service,  but  neither  did  He  accept  it.  Perhaps  "in  the  man's 
flaring  enthusiasm.  He  saw  the  smoke  of  egotistical  self-deceit."  He 
pointed  out  that  His  service  was  not  one  of  wealth,  or  honor,  or  de- 
light;  not  one  in  which  any  could  hope  for  earthly  gain.  "The  foxes," 
He  said,  "have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  resting-places,''  but 
the  Son  of  Man  ^  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head." 

The  second  was  already  a  partial  disciple,  ■•  but  wished  to  become  an 
entire  follower,  with  the  reservation  that  he  might  first  be  permitted  to 
bury  his  father.  "Follow  me!"  was  the  thrilling  answer,  "and  let  the 
dead  bury  their  dead;"  that  is,  leave  the  world  and  the  things  of  the 
world  to  mind  themselves.  He  who  would  follow  Christ  must  in  com- 
parison hate  even  father  and  mother.  He  must  leave  the  spiritually  dead 
to  attend  to  their  physically  dead.  ^ 

The  answer  to  the  third  aspirant  was  not  dissimilar.  He  too  pleaded 
for  delay — wished  not  to  join  Christ  immediately  in   His  voyage,  but  first 

1  Matt.  viii.  ig — 22  ;  Luke  ix.  57 — 62.  The  position  of  the  incident  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Matthew 
seems  to  show  that  it  has  been  narrated  out  of  its  order,  and  raore.  generally,  by  St.  Luke. 

2  Rather  "shelters"  than  "nests  ;"  for  birds  do  not  live  in  nests. 

3  This  was  a  title  which  would  kindle  no  violent  antipathy,  and  yet  was  understood  to  be  Messianic. 
Cf.  Dan.  vii.  13  ;  John  xii.  34. 

4  An  ancient  but  otherwise  groundless  tradition  says  that  it  was  Philip. 

5  Some  have  seen  a  certain  diiEculty  and  harshness  in  this  answer.  Theophylact  and  many  others  in- 
terpret it  to  mean  that  the  disciple  asked  leave  to  live  at  home  till  his  father's  death.  Such  an  offer  of  per- 
sonal attendance  would  seem  to  be  too  vague  to  be  of  any  value  ;  on  the  other  hand,  Sepp  and  others  have 
argued  that  had  his  father  been  really  dead  he  would  have  been  regarded  as  ceremonially  unclean,  and 
could  hardly  have  been  present  at  all.  In  either  case,  however,  the  general  lesson  is  that  drawn  by  St. 
Augustine  :  "A  father  should  be  loved,  but  a  Maker  should  be  preferred."  If  it  was  a  mere  question  of 
personal  attendance  on  a  funeral,  that  was  of  little  importance  compared  to  the  great  work  for  which  he 
offered  himself :  if  it  was  more  than  this,  might  not  the  indefinite  delay  breed  a  subsequent  remorse — 
possibly  even  a  subsequent  apostacy  ? 


236  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  all  to  bid  farewell  to  his  friends  at  home.  "  No  man,"  was  the  reply 
— which  has  become  proverbial  for  all  time — "  No  man  having  put  his 
hand  to  the  plow,  and  looking  back,  is  fit '  for  the  kingdon  of  heaven." 
To  use  the  fine  image  of  St.  Augustine,  "  the  East  was  calling  him,  he 
must  turn  his  thoughts  from  the  fading  West."  It  was  in  this  spirit 
thdt  the  loving  souls  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquino,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
St.  Francis  Xavier,  and  so  many  more  of  the  great  saints  in  the  Church's 
history  consoled  and  fortified  themselves,  when  forced  to  resign  every 
family  affection,  and  for  Christ's  sake  to  abandon  every  earthly  tie. 

So,  then,  at  last  these  fresh  delays  were  over,  and  the  little  vessel 
could  spread  her  sails  for  the  voyage.  Yet  even  now  Jesus  was,  as  it 
were,  pursued  by  followers,  for,  as  St.  Mark  again  tells  us,  "  other  little 
ships  were  with  Him."  But  they,  in  all  probability — since  we  are  not 
told  of  their  reaching  the  other  shore — were  soon  scattered  or  frightened 
back  by  the  signs  of  a  gathering  storm.  At  any  rate,  in  His  own  boat, 
and  among  His  own  trusted  disciples,  Jesus  could  rest  undisturbed,  and 
long  before  they  were  far  from  shore,  had  lain  His  weary  head  on  the 
leather  cushion  of  the  steersman,  and  was  sleeping  the  deep  sleep  of  the 
worn  and  weary — the  calm  sleep  of  those  who  are  at  peace  with  God. 

Even  that  sleep,  so  sorely  needed,  was  destined  to  speedy  and  violent 
disturbance.  One  of  the  fierce  storms  peculiar  to  that  deep  hollow  in  the 
earth's  surface,  swept  down  with  sudden  fury  on  the  little  inland  sea. 
With  scarcely  a  moment's  notice,"  the  air  was  filled  with  whirlwind  and 
the  sea  buffeted  into  tempest.  The  danger  was  extreme.  The  boat  was 
again  and  again  buried  amid  the  foam  of  the  breakers  which  burst  over 
it;  yet  though  they  must  have  covered  Him  with  their  dashing  spray  as 
He  lay  on  the  open  deck  at  the  stern.  He  was  calmly  sleeping  on^ — un- 
disturbed, so  deep  was  His  fatigue,  by  the  tempestuous  darkness — and  as 

1  Luke  ix.  62,  literally,  "well-adapted."  Possibly  both  the  aspirant  and  our  Lord  referred  mentally  to 
the  story  of  Elisha's  call  (i  Kings  xix.  ig,  20).  The  parallel  in  Hesiod  is  extremely  striking.  Yet  who 
would  be  so  absurd  as  to  dream  of  plagiarism  here  ? 

2  Travelers  have  often  noticed,  and  been  endangered  by,  these  sudden  storms.  The  expressions  used 
by  the  Evangelists  all  imply  the  extreme  fury  of  the  hurricane,  "A  great  disturbance  of  elements,"  Matt. 
viii.  24;  "There  came  down  a  hurricane  of  wind,"  Luke  viii.  23.  The  heated  tropical  air  of  the  Ghor, 
which  is  so  low  that  the  surface  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  lies  600  feet  beneath  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean, 
is  suddenly  filled  by  the  cold  and  heavy  winds  sweeping  down  the  snowy  ranges  of  Lebanon  and  Hermon, 
and  rushing  with  unwonted  fury  through  the  ravines  of  the  Peraean  hills,  which  converge  to  the  head  of 
the  Lake,  and  act  like  gigantic  funnels.     (Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  IL  xxv.) 

3  There  is  a  touch  of  tragic  surprise  in  the  "But  He  Himself  was  sleeping"  of  Matt.  viii.  24.  The 
Evangelists  evidently  derive  their  narrative  from  eye-witnesses.  St.  Matthew  mentions  the  covering  of 
the  ship  by  the  waves  (viii.  24);  St.  Mark,  the  dashing  of  the  waves  into  the  ship  (iv.  37),  and  the  steers- 
man's boss  (ver.  38). 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  237 

yet  no  one  ventured  to  awake  Him.  But  now  the  billows  were  actually 
breaking  into  the  boat  itself,  which  was  beginning  to  be  filled  and  to 
sink.  Then,  with  sudden  and  vehement  cries  of  excitement  and  terror, 
the  disciples  woke  Him.  "Lord!  Master!  Master!  save!  we  perish!"' 
Such  were  the  wild  sounds  which,  mingled  with  the  howling  of  the  winds 
and  the  dash  of  the  mastering  waves,  broke  confusedly  upon  His  h-alf- 
awakened  ear.  It  is  such  crises  as  these — crises  of  sudden  unexpected 
terror,  met  without  a  moment  of  preparation,  which  test  a  man,  what  spirit 
he  is  of — which  show  not  only  his  nerve,  but  the  grandeur  and  purity  of 
his  whole  nature.  The  hurricane  which  shook  the  tried  courage  and 
bafifled  the  utmost  skill  of  the  hardy  fishermen,  did  not  ruffle  for  one 
instant  the  deep  inward  serenity  of  the  Son  of  Man.  Without  one  sign 
of  confusion,  without  one  tremor  of  alarm,  Jesus  simply  raised  Himself 
on  His  elbow  from  the  dripping  stern  of  the  laboring  and  half-sinking 
vessel,  and,  without  further  movement, ="  stilled  the  tempest  of  their  souls 
by  the  quiet  words,  "Why  so  cowardly,  O  ye  of  little  faith?"  And  then 
rising  up,  standing  in  all  the  calm  of  a  natural  majesty  on  the  lofty  stern, 
while  the  hurricane  tossed,  for  a  moment  only.  His  fluttering  garments 
and  streaming  hair.  He  gazed  forth  into  the  darkness,  and  His  voice 
was  heard  amid  the  roaring  of  the  troubled  elements,  saying,  "  Peace  !  be 
still! "3  And  instantly  the  wind  dropped,  and  there  was  a  great  calm. 
And  as  they  watched  the  starlight  reflected  on  the  now  unrippled  water, 
not  the  disciples  only  but  even  the  sailors'*  whispered  to  one  another, 
"What  manner  of  man  is  this?" 

This  is  a  stupendous  miracle,  one  of  those  which  test  whether  we 
indeed  believe  in  the  credibility  of  the  miraculous  or  not ;  one  of  those 
miracles  of  power  which  cannot,  like  many  of  the  miracles  of  healino-, 
be  explained  away  by  existing  laws.  It  is  not  my  object  in  this  book 
to  convince  the  unbeliever,  or  hold  controversy  with  the  doubter. 
Something  of  what  I  had  to  say  on  this  subject  I  have  done  my  little 
best  to  say  elsewhere  ;  and  yet,  perhaps,  a  few  words  may  here  be  par- 
doned. Some,  and  they  neither  irreverent  nor  unfaithful  men,  have 
asked    whether    the    reality    may    not    have    been    somewhat    different  ? 

1  Matt.  viii.  25  ;  Luke  viii.  24. 

2  This  seems  to   be   clearly  involved  in  the  "  then,  rising"  of  Matt.  viii.  26 — aftir  He   had   spoken  to 
those  who  awoke  Him. 

3  There  is  an  almost  untranslatable  energy  in  the  words  of  Mark  iv.  39,  and  the  perfect  imperative 
implies  the  command  that  the  result  should  be  instantaneous — literally,  "I  muzzle,"  i  Cor.  ix.  9. 

4  Matt.  viii.  27. 


238  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

whether  we  may  not  understand  this  narrative  in  a  sense  hke  that  in 
which  we  should  understand  it  if  we  found  it  in  the  reasonably-attested 
legend  of  some  mediaeval  saint — a  St.  Nicholas  or  a  St.  Brandan  ?  whether 
we  may  not  suppose  that  the  fact  which  underlies  the  narrative  was  in 
reality  not  a  miraculous  exercise  of  power  over  those  elements  which  are 
most  beyond  the  reach  of  man,  but  that  Christ's  calm  communicated 
itself  by  immediate  and  subtle  influence  to  His  terrified  companions,  and 
that  the  hurricane,  from  natural  causes,  sank  as  rapidly  as  it  had  arisen  ? 
I  reply,  that  if  this  were  the  only  miracle  in  the  life  of  Christ;  if  the 
Gospels  were  indeed  the  loose,  exaggerated,  inaccurate,  credulous  narra- 
tives which  such  an  interpretation  would  suppose  ;  if  there  were  some- 
thing antecedently  incredible  in  the  supernatural ;  if  there  were  in  the 
spiritual  world  no  transcendent  facts  which  lie  far  beyond  the  compre- 
hension of  those  who  would  bid  us  see  nothing  in  the  universe  but  the 
action  of  material  laws  ;  if  there  were  no  providences  of  God  during 
these  nineteen  centuries  to  attest  the  work  and  the  divinity  of 
Christ — then  indeed  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  such  an  inter- 
pretation. But  if  we  believe  that  God  rules ;  if  we  believe  that 
Christ  rose ;  if  we  have  reason  to  hold,  among  the  deepest  con- 
victions of  our  being,  the  certainty  that  God  has  not  delegated  His 
sovereignty  or  His  providence  to  the  final,  unintelligent,  pitiless, 
inevitable  workng  of  material  forces ;  if  we  see  on  every  page  of 
the  Evangelists  the  quiet  simplicity  of  truthful  and  faithful  witnesses ; 
if  we  see  in  every  year  of  succeeding  history,  and  in  every  experience  of 
individual  life,  a  confirmation  of  the  testimony  which  they  delivered — 
then  we  shall  neither  clutch  at  rationalistic  interpretations,  nor  be  much 
troubled  if  others  adopt  them.  He  who  believes,  he  who  knows,  the 
efficacy  of  prayer,  in  what  other  men  may  regard  as  the  inevitable  cer- 
tainties or  blindly-directed  accidents  of  life — he  who  has  felt  how  the 
voice  of  a  Saviour,  heard  across  the  long  generations,  can  calm  wilder 
storms  than  ever  buffeted  into  fury  the  bosom  of  the  inland  Lake — he  who 
sees  in  the  person  of  his  Redeemer  a  fact  more  stupendous  and  more  majes- 
tic than  all  those  observed  sequences  which  men  endow  with  an  imaginary 
omnipotence,  and  worship  under  the  name  of  Law — to  him,  at  least,  there 
will  be  neither  difficulty  nor  hesitation  in  supposing  that  Christ,  on  board 
that  half-wrecked  fishing-boat,  did  utter  His  mandate,  and  that  the  wind 
and  the  sea  obeyed;  that  His  word  was  indeed  more  potent  among  the 
cos:nic    forces    than  miles  of    agitated    water,  or    leaQ:ues    of    rushing    air. 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  239 

Not  even  on  the  farther  shore  was  Jesus  to  find  peace  or  rest.'  On 
the  contrary,  no  sooner  had  He  reached  that  part  of  Persea  which  is 
called  by  St.  Matthew  the  "  country  of  the  Gergesenes,"  than  He  was 
met  by  an  exhibition  of  human  fury,  and  madness,  and  degradation,  even 
more  terrible  and  startling  than  the  rage  of  the  troubled  sea.  Barely 
had  He  landed  when,  from  among  the  rocky  cavern-tombs  of  the  Wady 
Semakh,  there  burst  into  His  presence  a  man  troubled  with  the  most  exag- 
gerated form  of  that  raging  madness  which  was  universally  attributed  to  de- 
moniacal possession.  Amid  all  the  boasted  civilization  of  antiquity,  there 
existed  no  hospitals,  no  penitentiaries,  no  asylums  ;  and  unfortunates  of 
this  class,  being  too  dangerous  and  desperate  for  human  intercourse, 
could  only  be  driven  forth  from  among  their  fellow-men,  and  restrained 
from  mischief  by  measures  at  once  inadequate  and  cruel.  Under  such 
circumstances  they  could,  if  irreclaimable,  only  take  refuge  in  those  holes 
along  the  rocky  hill-sides  which  abound  in  Palestine,  and  which  were 
used  by  the  Jews  as  tombs.  It  is  clear  that  the  foul  and  polluted  nature 
of  such  dwelling-places,  with  all  their  associations  of  ghastliness  and 
terror,  would  tend  to  aggravate  the  nature  of  the  malady;'  and  this  man/ 
who  had  long  been  afiflicted,  was  beyond  even  the  possibility  of  control.^ 
Attempts  had  been  made  to  bind  him,  but  in  the  paroxysms  of  his  mania 
he  had  exerted  that  apparently  supernatural  strength  which  is  often 
noticed  in  such  forms  of  mental  excitement,  and  had  always  succeeded  in 

1  Matt  viii.  28 — 34  ;  Mark  v.  i — ig  ;  Luke  viii.  26 — 39.  The  MSS.  of  all  three  Evangelists  vary  between 
Gadara,  Gerasa,  and  Gergesa.  After  the  researches  of  Dr.  Thomson  {The  Land  and  tlu  Book,  II.  ch.  x.\v.), 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Gergesa — though  mentioned  only  by  St.  Luke — was  the  name  of  a  little  town 
nearly  opposite  Capernaum,  the  ruined  site  of  which  is  still  called  Kerza  or  Gersa  by  the  Bedawin.  The  ex- 
istence of  this  little  town  was  apparently  known  both  to  Origen,  who  first  introduced  the  reading,  and  to 
Eusebius  and  Jerome  ;  and  in  their  day  a  steep  declivity  near  it,  where  the  hills  approach  to  within  a  little 
distance  from  the  Lake,  was  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the  miracle.  Gerasa  is  much  too  far  to  the  east, 
being  almost  in  Arabia.  Gadara— if  that  reading  be  correct  in  Matt.  viii.  28  (N.  B) — can  only  be  the  name 
of  the  whole  district  derived  from  its  capital.  The  authority  of  the  reading  is,  however,  weakened  (i)  by 
the  fact  that  it  was  only  found  in  a  few  MSS.  in  Origen's  time  ;  and  (2)  by  the  probability  of  so  well-known 
a  place  being  inserted  instead  of  the  obscure  little  Gergesa.  The  ruins  of  Gadara  are  still  visible  at  Um 
A'tis,  three  hours  to  the  south  of  the  extreme  end  of  the  Lake,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  Jarmuk,  or 
Hieromax,  the  banks  of  which  are  as  deep  and  precipitous  as  those  of  the  Jordan.  It  is  therefore  far  too 
remote  to  have  any  real  connection  with  the  scene  of  the  miracle  .  and  in  point  of  fact,  "of  the  Gerges- 
enes "  must  have  been  something  more  than  a  conjecture  of  Origen's  in  this  verse,  for  it  is  found  in  eight 
uncials,  most  cursives,  and  (among  others)  in  the  Coptic  and  ^Cthiopic  versions.  It  must  therefore  be  re- 
garded as  the  probable  reading,  and  St.  Matthew,  as  one  who  had  actually  lived  on  the  shore  of  the  Lake, 
was  most  likely  to  know  its  minute  topography,  and  so  to  have  preserved  the  real  name. 

2  Tombs  were  the  express  dwelling-place  of  demons  in  the  Jewish  belief.  "  When  a  man  spends  a 
night  in  a  graveyard,  an  evil  spirit  descends  upon  him."  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these  "  demons" 
were  expressly  supposed  to  be  spirits  of  the  wicked  dead. 

3  Compare  Sir  W.  Scott's  powerful  description  of  the  effects  produced  on  the  minds  of  the  Covenantc.s- 
by  their  cavern  retirements. 


240  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

rending  off  his  fetters,  and  twisting  away  or  shattering  his  chains ; '  and 
now  he  had  been  abandoned  to  the  lonely  hills  and  unclean  solitudes 
which,  night  and  day,  rang  with  his  yells  as  he  wandered  among  them, 
dangerous  to  himself  and  to  others,  raving,  and  gashing  himself  with 
stones. 

It  was  the  frightful  figure  of  this  naked  and  homicidal  maniac  that 
burst  upon  our  Lord  almost  as  soon  as  He  had  landed  at  early  dawn, ' 
and  perhaps  another  demoniac,  who  was  not  a  Gadarene,  and  who  was 
less  grieviously  afflicted,  may  have  hovered  about  at  no  great  distance,  ^ 
although,  beyond  this  allusion  to  his  presence,  he  plays  no  part  in  the 
narrative.  The  presence,  the  look,  the  voice  of  Christ,  even  before  He 
addressed  these  sufferers,  seems  always  to  have  calmed  and  overawed 
them,  and  this  demoniac  of  Gergesa  was  no  exception.  Instead  of  falling 
upon  the  disciples,  he  ran  to  Jesus  from  a  distance,  and  fell  down  before 
Him  in  an  attitude  of  worship.  Mingling  his  own  perturbed  individuality 
with  that  of  the  multitude  of  unclean  spirits  which  he  believed  to  be  in 
possession  of  His  soul,  he  entreated  the  Lord,  in  loud  and  terrified 
accents,  not  to  torment  him  before  the  time. 

It  is  well  known  that  to  recall  a  maniac's  attention  to  his  name,  to 
awake  his  memory,  to  touch  his  sympathies  by  past  associations,  often 
produces  a  lucid  interval,  and  perhaps  this  may  have  been  the  reason 
why  Jesus  said  to  the  man,  "What  is  thy  name?"  But  this  question 
only  receives  the  wild  answer,  "  My  name  is  Legion,  for  we  are  many." 
The  man  had,  as  it  were,  lost  his  own  name ;  it  was  absorbed  in  the 
hideous  tyranny  of  that  multitude  of  demons  under  whose  influence  his 
own  personality  was  destroyed.  *  The  presence  of  Roman  armies  in 
Palestine  had  rendered  him  familiar  with    that    title  of  multitude,  and  as 

1  Mark  v.  4.  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  here  give  us  the  minute  details,  which  show  the  impression 
made  on  the  actual  witnesses.  St.  Matthew's  narrative  is  less  circumstantial  ;  it  is  probable  that  he  was 
not  with  our  Lord,  and  he  may  have  been  preparing  for  that  winding-up  of  his  affairs  which  was  finished  at 
the  great  feast  prepared  for  Jesus  apparently  on  the  afternoon  of  this  very  day. 

2  Mark  v.  2  ;  Luke  viii.  27.  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  he  was  stark  naked,  for  he  may 
still  have  worn  a  "tunic"  ;  but  the  tendency  to  strip  themselves  bare  of  every  rag  of  clothing  is  common 
among  lunatics.  It  was,  for  instance,  one  of  the  tendencies  of  Christian  VII.  of  Denmark.  Furious 
maniacs — absolutely  naked — wander  to  this  day  in  the  mountains,  and  sleep  in  the  caves  of  Palestine. 

3  As  we  may  perhaps  infer  from  Matt.  viii.  28.  There  is  a  difference  here,  but  no  fair  critic  dealing 
with  any  other  narrative  would  dream  of  calling  it  an  irreconcilable  discrepancy  ;  at  any  rate  they  would 
not  consider  that  it  in  any  way  impaired  the  credibility  of  the  narrative.  Probably,  if  we  knew  the  actual 
circumstances,  we  should  see  no  shadow  of  difficulty  in  the  fact  that  Matthew  mentions  two,  and  the  other 
Evangelists  one.  Similar  minute  differences  occur  at  every  step  in  the  perfectly  honest  evidence  of  men 
whom  no  one,  on  that  account,  dreams  of  doubting,  or  of  charging  with  untrustworthy  observation. 

4  This  duality  and  apparent  interchange  of  consciousness  were  universal  among  this  afflicted  class. 


THE  PEARL  OF  GREAT   PRICE.— Matt.  xiii.  45. 


SOWING   THE  GOOD   SEED.— Matt.  xiii.  3. 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  241 

though  six  thousand  evil  spirits  were  in  him  he  answers  by  the  Latin 
word  which  had  now  become  so  familiar  to  every  Jew.  '  And  still 
agitated  by  his  own  perturbed  fancies,  he  entreats,  as  though  the  thou- 
sands of  demons  were  speaking  by  his  mouth,  that  they  might  not  be 
driven  into  the  abyss,  but  be  suffered  to  take  refuge  in  the  swine. 

The  narrative  which  follows  is  to  us  difficult  of  comprehension,  and 
one  which,  however  literally  accepted,  touches  upon  regions  so  wholly 
mysterious  and  unknown  that  we  have  no  clue  to  its  real  significance, 
and  can  gain  nothing  by  speculating  upon  it.  The  narrative  in  St.  Luke 
runs  as  follows  : — 

"And  there  was  an  herd  of  many  swine"  feeding  upon  the  mount- 
ain ;  and  they  besought  Him  that  He  would  suffer  them  to  enter  into 
them.  And  He  suffered  them.  Then  went  the  devils  out  of  the  man, 
and  entered  into  the  swine ;  and  the  herd  ran  violently  down  a  steep 
place  into  the  lake,  and  were  choked." 

That  the  demoniac  was  healed — that  in  the  terrible  final  paroxysm 
which  usually  accompanied  the  deliverance  from  this  strange  and  awful 
malady,  a  herd  of  swine  was  in  some  way  affected  with  such  wild  terror 
as  to  rush  headlong  in  large  numbers  over  a  steep  hill-side  into  the 
waters  of  the  lake — and  that,  in  the  minds  of  all  who  were  present, 
including  that  of  the  sufferer  himself,  this  precipitate  rushing  of  the 
swine  was  connected  with  the  man's  release  from  his  demoniac  thraldom 
— thus  much  is  clear. 

And  indeed,  so  far,  there  is  no  difficulty  whatever.  Any  one  who 
believes  in  the  Gospels,  and  believes  that  the  Son  of  God  did  work  on 
earth  deeds  which  far  surpass  mere  human  power,  must  believe  that 
among  the  most  frequent  of  His  cures  were  those  of  the  distressing  forms 
of  mental  and  nervous  malady  which  we  ascribe  to  purely  natural  causes, 
but  which  the  ancient  Jews,  like  all  Orientals,  attributed  to  direct  super- 
natural agency.'  And  knowing  to  how  singular  an  extent  the  mental  im- 
pressions of  man  affect  by  some  unknown  electric  influence  the  lower 
animals — knowing,  for  instance,  that  man's  cowardice  and  exultation,  and 

1  The  ancient  Megiddo  bore  at  this  time  the  name  Legio,  from  the  Roman  company  stationed  there. 
It  is  still  called  Ledjun. 

2  St.  Mark,  specific  as  usual,  says  "about  two  thousand." 

3  "  All  kinds  of  diseases  which  are  called  melancholy  they  call  an  evil  spirit"  (Maimon).  Hence  it  is 
not  surprising  that  mechanical  exorcisms  were  sometimes  resorted  to.  In /cr.  Tirumotli,  people  afflicted 
with  hypochondria,  melancholy,  and  brain-disease,  are  all  treated  as  demoniacs,  and  Kardaicus  is  even 
made  a  demon's  name.  St.  Peter  seems  to  class  all  the  diseased  whom  Christ  cured,  as  "  enslaved  by  the 
devil  "  (Acts  x.  38). 

16 


242  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

even  his  superstitious  terrors,  do  communicate  themselves  to  the  dog' 
which  accompanies  him,  or  the  horse  on  which  he  rides — there  can  be 
little  or  no  dififtculty  in  understanding  that  the  shrieks  and  gesticulations 
of  a  powerful  lunatic  might  strike  uncontrollable  terror  into  a  herd  of 
swine.  We  know  further  that  the  spasm  of  deliverance  was  often  at- 
tended with  fearful  convulsions,  sometimes  perhaps  with  an  effusion  of 
blood  ; '  and  we  know  that  the  sight  and  smell  of  human  blood  produces 
strange  effects  in  many  animals.  May  there  not  have  been  something  of 
this  kind  at  work  in  this  singular  event? 

It  is  true  that  the  Evangelists  (as  their  language  clearly  shows) 
held,  in  all  its  simplicity,  the  belief  that  actual  devils  passed  in  multi- 
tudes out  of  the  man  and  into  the  swine.  But  is  it  not  allowable  here 
to  make  a  distinction  between  actual  facts  and  that  which  was  the  mere 
conjecture  and  inference  of  the  spectators  from  whom  the  three  Evan- 
gelists heard  the  tale  ?  If  we  are  not  bound  to  believe  the  man's  hallu- 
cination that  six  thousand  devils  were  in  possession  of  his  soul,  are  we 
bound  to  believe  the  possibility,  suggested  by  his  perturbed  intellect,  that 
the  unclean  spirits  should  pass  from  him  into  the  swine?''  If  indeed  we 
could  be  sure  that  Jesus  directly  encouraged  or  sanctioned  in  the  man's 
mind  the  belief  that  the  swine  were  indeed  driven  wild  by  the  unclean 
spirits  which  passed  objectively  from  the  body  of  the  Gergesene  into  the 
bodies  of  these  dumb  beasts,  then  we  could,  without  hesitation,  believe 
as  a  literal  truth,  however  incomprehensible,  that  so  it  was.  But  this  by 
no  means  follows  indisputably  from  what  we  know  of  the  method  of  the 
Evangelists.  Let  all  who  will,  hold  fast  to  the  conviction  that  men  and 
beasts  may  be  quite  literally  possessed  of  devils  ;  only  let  them  beware 
of  confusing  their  own  convictions,  which  are  binding  on  themselves  alone, 
with  those  absolute  and  eternal  certainties  which  cannot  be  rejected  with- 
out moral  blindness  by  others.  Let  them  remember  that  a  hard  and  de- 
nunciative dogmatism  approaches  more  nearly  than  anything  else  to  that 
Pharisaic  want  of  charity  which  the  Lord  whom  they  love  and  worship 
visited  with  His  most  scathing  anger  and  rebuke.  The  literal  reality  of 
demoniac    possession    is    a    belief    for   which    more    may    perhaps  be  said 

1  Some  years  ago  the  dead  body  of  a  murdered  lady  was  discovered  in  a  lonely  field  solely  by  the 
strange  movements  of  the  animals  which  were  half-maddened  by  the  sight  of  the  blood-stained  corpse. 
The  fact  was  undisputed:  "the  cows,"  as  one  of  the  witnesses  described  it,  "went  blaring  a.'bo\i\.  the 
field." 

2  This  was  a  thoroughly  Jewish  belief.  R.  Samuel  attributes  the  hydrophobia  of  dogs  to  demoniac 
possession. 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS.  243 

than  is  admitted  by  the  purely  physical  science  of  the  present  day,'  but 
it  is  not  a  necessary  article  of  the  Christian  creed  ;  and  if  any  reader 
imagines  that  in  this  brief  narrative,  to  a  greater  extent  than  in  any 
other,  there  are  certain  nuances  of  expression  in  which  subjective  infer- 
ences are  confused  with  exact  realities,  he  is  holding  a  view  which  has 
the  sanction  of  many  wise  and  thoughtful  Churchmen,  and  has  a  right 
to  do  so  without  the  slightest  imputation  on  the  orthodoxy  of  his  belief.'' 

That  the  whole  scene  was  violent  and  startling  appears  in  the  fact  that 
the  keepers  of  the  swine  "  fled  and  told  it  in  the  city  and  in  the  country." 
The  people  of  Gergesa,  and  the  Gadarenes  and  Gerasenes  of  all  the  neigh- 
boring district,  flocked  out  to  see  the  Mighty  Stranger  who  had  thus 
visited  their  coasts.  What  livelier  "or  more  decisive  proof  of  His  power 
and  His  beneficence  could  they  have  had  than  the  sight  which  met 
their  eyes?  The  filthy  and  frantic  demoniac  who  had  been  the  terror 
of  the  country,  so  that  none  could  pass  that  way — the  wild-eyed  dweller 
in  the  tombs  who  had  been  accustomed  to  gash  himself  with  cries  of 
rage,  and  whose  untamed  fierceness  broke  away  all  fetters — was  now 
calm  as  a  child.  Some  charitable  hand  had  flung  an  outer  robe  over 
his  naked  figure,  and  he  was  sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  clothed,  and 
in  his  right  mind. 

"And  they  were  afraid" — more  afraid  of  that  Holy  Presence  than 
of  the  previous  furies  of  the  possessed.  The  man  inded  was  saved  ;  but 
what  of  that,  considering  that  some  of  their  two  thousand  unclean  beasts 
had  perished!     Their  precious  swine  were  evidently  in  danger;  the  greed 

1  See  this  beautifully  and  moderately  stated  by  Professor  Westcott.  He  contrasts  the  superstitious 
materialism  of  Josephus  with  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  narratives.  A  powerful  series  of  arguments  for 
the  tenability  of  the  view  which  denies  actual  demoniac  possession  may  be  found  in  Jahn,  and  are  main- 
tained by  the  late  Rev.  J.  F.  Denham  in  Kitto's  Bihl.  Cyclop.,  on  "  Demons." 

2  So  many  good,  able,  and  perfectly  orthodox  writers  have,  with  the  same  data  before  them,  arrived 
at  differing  conclusions  on  this  question,  that  any  certainty  respecting  it  appears  to  be  impossible.  My 
own  view  under  these  circumstances  is  of  no  particular  importance,  but  it  is  this  :  I  have  shown  that  the 
Jews,  like  all  unscientific  nations  in  all  ages,  attributed  many  nervous  disorders  and  physical  obstructions 
to  demoniac  possession  which  we  should  attribute  to  natural  causes  ;  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  deny  that  in 
the  dark  and  desperate  age  which  saw  the  Redeemer's  advent  there  mav  have  been  forms  of  madness  which 
owed  their  more  immediate  manifestation  to  evil  powers.  I  should  not  personally  find  much  hardship  or 
difficulty  in  accepting  such  a  belief,  and  have  only  been  arguing  against  the  uncharitable  and  pernicious 
attempt  to  treat  it  as  a  necessary  article  of  faith  for  all.  The  subject  is  too  obscure  (even  to  science)  to 
admit  of  dogmatism  on  either  side.  Since  writing  the  above  paragraphs,  I  find  that  (to  say  nothing  of  Dr. 
Lardner)  two  writers  so  entirely  above  suspicion  as  Neander  and  De  Pressense  substantially  hold  the  same 
view.  "  There  is  a  gap  here,"  says  Neander,  "  in  our  connection  of  the  facts.  Did  Christ  really  partici- 
pate in  the  opinions  of  the  demoniac,  or  was  it  only  subsequently  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  swine 
rushed  down,  that  Christ  had  allowed  the  evil  spirits  to  take  possession  of  them  ?"  "  That  these  devils," 
says  Pressensfe,  "literally  entered  into  the  body  of  the  swine  is  an  inadmissible  supposition."  The  modern 
Jews,  like  their  ancestors,  attribute  a  vast  number  of  interferences  to  the  schedtm,  or  evil  spirits. 


244  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  gluttony  of  every  apostate  Jew  and  low-bred  Gentile  in  the  place 
were  clearly  imperiled  by  receiving  such  a  one  as  they  saw  that  Jesus 
was.  With  disgraceful  and  urgent  unanimity  they  entreated  and  implored 
Him  to  leave  their  coasts.  Both  heathens  and  Jews  had  recognized 
already  the  great  truth  that  God  sometimes  answers  bad  prayers  in  His 
deepest  anger."  Jesus  Himself  had  taught  His  disciples  not  to  give  that 
which  was  holy  to  the  dogs,  neither  to  cast  their  pearls  before  swine, 
"lest  they  trample  them  under  their  feet,  and  turn  again  and  rend  you." 
He  had  gone  across  the  lake  for  quiet  and  rest,  desiring,  though  among 
lesser  multitudes,  to  extend  to  these  semi-heathens  also  the  blessings  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  But  they  loved  their  sins  and  their  swine,  and 
with  a  perfect  energy  of  deliberate  preference  for  all  that  was  base  and 
mean,  rejected  such  blessings,  and  entreated  Him  to  go  away.  Sadly, 
but  at  once.  He  turned  and  left  them.  Gergesa  was  no  place  for  Him; 
better  the  lonely  hill-tops  to  the  north  of  it ;  better  the  crowded  strand 
on  the  other  side. 

And  yet  He  did  not  leave  them  in  anger.  One  deed  of  mercy  had 
been  done  there;  one  sinner  had  been  saved;  from  one  soul  the  unclean 
spirits  had  been  cast  out.  And  just  as  the  united  multitude  of  the 
Gadarenes  had  entreated  for  His  absence,  so  the  poor  saved  demoniac 
entreated  henceforth  to  be  with  Him.  But  Jesus  would  fain  leave  one 
more,  one  last  opportunity  for  those  who  had  rejected  Him.  On  others 
for  whose  sake  miracles  had  been  performed  He  had  enjoined  silence; 
on  this  man — since  He  was  now  leaving  the  place — He  enjoined  pub- 
licity. "Go  home,"  He  said,  "to  thy  friends,  and  tell  them  how  great 
things  the  Lord  hath  done  for  thee,  and  hath  had  compassion  on  thee." 
And  so  the  demoniac  of  Gergesa  became  the  first  great  missionary  to 
the  region  of  Decapolis,  bearing  in  his  own  person  the  confirmation  of 
his  words;  and  Jesus,  as  His  little  vessel  left  the  inhospitable  shore, 
might  still   hope  that   the  day  might  not  be   far  distant — might  come,  at 

I  See  Exod.  x.  28,  29  ;  Numb.  xxii.  20  ;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  29 — 31. 

"  We,  ignorant  of  ourselves, 

Beg  often  our  own  harms,  which  the  wise  powers 
Deny  us  for  our  good." — Shaksp.  Ant.  and  Cleop.  ii.  i. 

"  God  answers  sharp  and  sudden  on  some  prayers, 
And  flings  the  thing  we  have  asked  for  in  our  face  ; 
A  gauntlet  with  a  gift  in  't." — Aurora  Leigh. 

The  truth  was  also  thoroughly  recognized  in  Pagan  literature.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  moral  of  the  legend  of 
Titbonus. 


A  GREAT  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS. 


245 


any  rate,  before  over  that    ill-fated  district   burst  the  storm  of  sword  and 
fire — when 

"  E'en  the  witless  Gadarene, 
Preferring  Jhrist  to  swine,  would  feel 
That  life  is  sweetest  when  'tis  clean."  3 

a  Coventry  Patmore. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 


THE     DAY     OF     MATTHEWS     FEAST. 


'  Never  be  joyful  except  when  you  look  on  your  brother  in  love." — Jerome  in  Eph.  v.  3  (quoted  as  a  saying 
of  Christ  from  the  Hebrew  Gospel). 


HE  events  just  described  had  happened  appar- 
ently in  the  early  morning,  and  it  might  perhaps 
be    noon    when    Jesus   reached    once    more    the 

',  ;  Plain  of  Gennesareth.  People  had  recognized 
the  sail  of  His  returning  vessel,  and  long  before 
He  reached  land '  the  multitudes  had  lined  the 
shore,  and  were  waiting  for  Him,  and  received 
Him  gladly. 

If  we  may  here  accept  as  chronological  the 
order   of  St.    Matthew  ° — to  whom,  as   we   shall 

JjP(3M[,  see  hereafter,  this  must  have  been  a  very  mem- 

OkQ-  orable  day — Jesus  went  first  into  the  town  of  Capernaum, 
which  was  now  regarded  as  "  His  own  city."  He  went  at 
once  to  the  house — probably  the  house  of  St.  Peter — which 
He  ordinarily  used  when  staying  at  Capernaum.  There  the 
crowd  gathered  in  ever  denser  numbers,  filling  the  house,  and  even  the 
court-yard  which  surrounded  it,  so  that  there  was  no  access  even  to  the 
door.3  But  there  was  one  poor  sufferer — a  man  bedridden  from  a  stroke 
of  paralysis — who,  with  his  friends,  had  absolutely  determined  that  access 
should  be  made  for  him ;  he  would  be  one  of  those  violent  men  who 
would  take  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  force.  And  the  four  who  were 
carrying  him,   finding  that  they  could  not  reach  Jesus  through  the  crowd, 

1  Luke  viii.  40. 

2  Matt.  ix.  I.     Some  may  see  an  objection  to  this  arrangement  in  the  fact  that  St.  Luke  (v.  17)  men- 
tions Pharisees  not  only  from  Galilee,  but  even  from  Judea  and  Jerusalem  as  being  present  at  the  scene. 

«  It  is,  however,  perfectly  clear  that  the  Pharisees  are  not  the  spies  from  Jerusalem  subsequently  sent  to  dog 
His  steps  (Mark  iii.  2  ;  vii.  I  ;  Matt.  xv.  i) ;  for,  on  the  contrary,  St.  Luke  distinctly  says  "  that  the  power 
of  the  Lord  was  present  to  heal  them."  We  surmise,  therefore,  that  they  must  have  come  from  motives 
which  were  at  least  harmless. 


3  Matt.  ix.  2 — S  ;  Mark  ii.  i — 12  ;  Luke  v.  17 — 26. 

146 


THE  DAY  OF  MATTHEW'S  FEAST.  247 

made    their    way  to  the    roof,  perhaps    by  the  usual  outer  staircase,"  and 
making  an  aperture  in  the  roof  by  the  removal  of   a  few  tiles,^  let  down 
the  paralytic,  on  his  humble  couch,^  exactly  in  front    of   the  place  where 
Christ  was  sitting.     The  man  was  silent,  perhaps  awe-struck  at  his  manner 
of    intrusion    into    the    Lord's    presence;    but    Jesus    was   pleased    at    the 
strength  and  unhesitating  boldness  of    faith  which  the  act  displayed,  and 
bestowing  first  upon  the  man  a  richer  blessing    than    that   which  he  pri- 
marily sought,  He  gently  said  to  him,  as  He  had  said  to  the  woman  who 
was  a  sinner,   "Be  of    good  courage,  son;^  thy  sins    are    forgiven    thee." 
Our  Lord  had  before  observed  the  unfavorable    impression    produced  on 
the    bystanders    by  those  startling    words.      He  again  observed  it  now  in 
the  interchanged  glances  of  the  Scribes  who  were    present,  and  the  look 
of  angry  disapproval  on    their    countenances.^     But  on    this  occasion   He 
did  not,  as  before,  silently  substitute  another  phrase.     On    the    contrary, 
He  distinctly  challenged    attention  to   His    words,  and    miraculously  justi- 
fied them.      Reading  their  thoughts.  He  reproved  them  for    the  fierce  un- 
uttered  calumnies  of   which  their  hearts    were    full,  and    put    to    them    a 
direct  question.      "Which,"  He  asked,  "is  easier?  to  say  to  the  paralytic, 
'  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  ; '  or  to  say,    '  Arise  and  walk  ? '  "     May    not 
anybody  say  the  former    without    its    being    possible    to  tell    whether  the 
sins  are  forgiven  or   not?   but  who  can  say  the  latter,  and  give  effect  to 
his  own  words,  without  a  power  from  above  ?     If  I  can    by  a  word  heal 
this  paralytic,  is  it  not  clear  that  I  must  be  One  who  has  also  power  on 
earth  to  forgive  sins  ?     The  unanswerable  question  was  received  with  the 
.silence  of  an  invincible  obstinacy  ;   but    turning  once    more    to  the    para- 
lytic, Jesus  said  to  Him,   "  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and    walk."     At  once 
power  was  restored  to  the  palsied  limbs,  peace  to  the  stricken  soul.     The 
man  was  healed.      He  rose,  lifted  the  light  couch  on    which  he  had  been 

1  Eastern  houses  are  low,  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  get  to  their  roofs,  especially  when  they  are 
built  on  rising  ground.     For  the  outer  staircase,  see  Matt.  x.\iv.  17. 

2  Luke  V.  19,  "  through  the  tiles."  Otherwise  the  "  digging  up,"of  St.  Mark  might  lead  us  to  imagine 
that  they  cut  through  some  mud  partition.  Possibly  they  enlarged  an  aperture  in  the  roof.  The  details 
are  not  sufficiently  minute  to  make  us  understand  c-xac-//y  what  was  done,  and  the  variations  of  reading 
show  that  some  difficulty  was  felt  by  later  readers  ;  but  the  mere  fact  of  opening  the  roof  is  quite  an 
every-day  matter  in  the  East  (see  Thomson,  r/u  Land  and  the  Book,  p.  358).  The  objection  that  the  lives 
or  safety  of  those  sitting  below  would  be  endangered  (!)  is  one  of  the  ignorant  childishnesses  of  merely 
captious  criticism. 

3  "  Little  couch"  (Luke  v.  19),  "pallet"  (Mark   ii.  4).     Probably  little  more  than  a  mere  mat. 

4  Luke  V.  20,  ■•  O  man  ; "  Mark  ii.  5,  "  child."  The  "  Take  courage,  my  child,"  of  Malt.  i.x.  2,  being 
the  tenderest,  is  the  phrase  most  likely  to  have  been  used  by  Christ. 

5  "  Why  does  this  man  speak  thus?  He  blasphemes."— Such  is  probably  the  true  meaning  of  Mark 
ii.  7- 


248  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

lying,  and,  while  now  the  crowd  opened  a  passage  for  him,  he  went  to 
his  house  glorifying  God  ;  and  the  multitude,  when  they  broke  up  to  dis- 
perse, kept  exchanging  one  with  another  exclamations  of  astonishment 
not  unmixed  with  fear,  "  We  saw  strange  things  to-day  ! "  "  We  never 
saw  anything  like  this  before  ! " 

From  the  house — perhaps  to  allow  of  more  listeners  hearing  His 
words — Jesus  seems  to  have  adjourned  to  His  favorite  shore;'  and  thence, 
after  a  brief  interval  of  teaching.  He  repaired  to  the  house  of  Matthew, 
in  which  the  publican,  who  was  now  an  Apostle,  had  made  a  great  feast 
of  farewell  to  all  his  friends. ''  As  he  had  been  a  publican  himself,  it  was 
natural  that  many  of  these  also  would  be  "  publicans  and  sinners  " — the 
outcasts  of  society,  objects  at  once  of  hatred  and  contempt.  Yet  Jesus 
and  His  disciples,  with  no  touch  of  scorn  or  exclusiveness,  sat  down  with 
them  at  the  feast:  "for  there  were  many,  and  they  were  His  followers." 
A  charity  so  liberal  caused  deep  dissatisfaction,  on  two  grounds,  to  two 
powerful  bodies — the  Pharisees  and  the  disciples  of  John.  To  the  former, 
mainly  because  this  contact  with  men  of  careless  and  evil  lives  violated 
all  the  traditions  of  their  haughty  scrupulosity  ;  to  the  latter,  because  this 
ready  acceptance  of  invitations  to  scenes  of  feasting  seemed  to  discount- 
enance the  necessity  for  their  half-Essenian  asceticism.  The  complaints 
could  hardly  have  been  made  at  the  time,  for  unless  any  Pharisees  or 
disciples  of  John  merely  looked  in  from  curiosity  during  the  progress 
of  the  meal,  their  own  presence  there  would  have  involved  them  in  the 
very  blame  which  they  were  casting  on  their  Lord.  But  Jesus  probably 
heard  of  their  murmurs  before  the  feast  was  over.  There  was  something 
characteristic  in  the  way  in  which  the  criticism  was  made.  The  Pharisees, 
still  a  little  dubious  as  to  Christ's  real  character  and  mission,  evidently 
overawed  by  His  greatness,  and  not  yet  having  ventured  upon  any  open 
rupture  with  Him,  only  vented  their  ill-humor  on  the  disciples,  asking  them 
"why  their  Master  ate  with  publicans  and  sinners?"  The  simple-minded 
Apostles  were  perhaps  unable    to  explain;    but    Jesus   at    once   faced    the 

1  Mark  ii.  13. 

2  Matt.  ix.  II;  Mark  ii.  15;  Luke  v.  29.  This  shows  that  Matthew  had  made  large  earthly  sacrifices 
to  follow  Christ.  It  seems  quite  clear  that  the  only  reason  why  the  Synoptists  relate  the  call  of  Matthew 
in  this  place  instead  of  earlier,  is  to  connect  his  call  with  this  feast.  But  on  the  other  hand  a  great  farewell 
feast  could  hardly  have  been  given  on  the  very  day  of  the  call,  and  other  circumstances,  arising  especially 
from  the  fact  that  the  Twelve  were  chosen  before  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  that  the  call  of  Matthew 
from  the  toll-booth  must  have  preceded  his  selection  as  an  Apostle,  lead  us  to  the  conviction  that  the  feast 
was  given  afterwards;  and,  indeed,  Archbishop  Newcome,  in  his  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  p.  259,  says 
•'  that  Levi's  call  and  feast  were  separated  in  the  most  ancient  Harmonies  from  Tatian,  in  A.D.  170,  to 
Gerson,  A.D.  1400;"  and  he  might  have  added,  down  to  many  modern  commentators. 


JESUS    HEALING    THK    ISSUE   OK    B1.00D.— M:iU.  ix.  22. 


THE  DAY  OF  MATTHEWS  FEAST.  249 

opposition,  and  told  these  murmuring  respectabilities  that  He  came  not 
to  the  self-righteous,  but  to  the  conscious  sinners.  He  came  not  to  the 
folded  flock,  but  to  the  straying  sheep.  To  preach  the  Gospel  to  the 
poor,  to  extend  mercy  to  the  lost,  was  the  very  object  for  which  He  taber- 
nacled among  men.  It  was  His  will  7iot  to  thrust  His  grace  on  those  who 
from  the  very  first  willfully  steeled  their  hearts  against  it,  but  gently  to 
extend  it  to  those  who  needed  and  felt  their  need  of  it.  His  teaching 
was  to  be  "  as  the  small  rain  upon  the  tender  herb,  and  as  the  showers 
upon  the  grass."  And  then,  referring  them  to  one  of  those  palmary 
passages  of  the  Old  Testament  (Hos.  vi.  6)'  which  even  in  those  days 
had  summed  up  the  very  essence  of  all  that  was  pleasing  to  God  in  love 
and  mercy.  He  borrowed  the  phrase  of  their  own  Rabbis,  and  bade  them — 
these  teachers  of  the  people,  who  claimed  to  know  so  much — to  "go  and 
learn"  what  that  meaneth,  "I  will  have  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice."  Per- 
haps it  had  never  before  occurred  to  their  astonished  minds,  overlaid  as 
they  were  by  a  crust  of  mere  Levitism  and  tradition,  that  the  love  which 
thinks  it  no  condescension  to  mingle  with  sinners  in  the  effort  to  win 
their  souls,  is  more  pleasing  to  God  than  thousands  of  rams  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  rivers  of  oil. 

The  answer  to  the  somewhat  querulous  question  asked  Him  by  John's 
disciples  was  less  severe  in  tone.'  No  doubt  He  pitied  that  natural  de- 
jection of  mind  which  arose  from  the  position  of  the  great  teacher,  to 
whom  alone  they  had  as  yet  learned  to  look,  and  who  now  lay  in  the 
dreary  misery  of  a  Machaerus  dungeon.  He  might  have  answered  that 
fasting  was  at  the  best  a  work  of  supererogation — useful,  indeed,  and 
obligatory,  if  any  man  felt  that  thereby  he  was  assisted  in  the  mortifica- 
tion of  anything  which  was  evil  in  his  nature — but  worse  than  useless  if 
it  merely  ministered  to  his  spiritual  pride,  and  led  him  to  despise  others. 
He  might  have  pointed  out  to  them  that  although  they  had  instituted  a 
fast  twice  in  the  week,'  this  was  but  a  traditional  institution,  so  little 
sanctioned  by  the  Mosaic  law,  that  in  it  but  07ie  single  day  of  fasting  was 

1  The  quotation  is  from  the  Hebrew.  Comp.  Matt.  xii.  7;  I  Sam.  .kv.  22;  Deut.  x.  12;  Prov.  x.xi.  3; 
Blccles.  xii.  13;  Hosea  vi.  6;  Micah  vi.  8;  passages  amply  sufEcient  to  have  shown  the  Jews,  had  they  realty 
searched  the  Scriptures,  the  hollowness  and  falsity  of  the  whole  Pharisaic  system. 

2  Matt.  ix.  14 — 17;  Mark  ii.  18 — 22;  Luke  v.  33 — 39.  Apparently  the  Pharisees,  eager  to  seize  any 
and  every  opportunity  to  oppose  Him,  and  glad  of  a  combination  so  powerful  and  so  unwonted  as  that 
which  enabled  them  to  unite  with  John's  disciples,  joined  in  this  question  also  (Mark  ii.  19). 

3  On  Thursday,  because  on  that  day  Moses  was  believed  to  have  re-ascended  Mount  Sinai  ;  on  Mon- 
day, because  on  that  day  he  returned.     Cf.  Luke  xviii.  12. 


250  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

appointed  for  the  entire  year.'  He  might,  too,  have  added  that  the  rea- 
son why  fasting  had  not  been  made  a  universal  duty  is  probably  that 
spirit  of  mercy  which  recognized  how  differently  it  worked  upon  different 
temperaments,  fortifying  some  against  the  attacks  of  temptation,  but  only 
hindering  others  in  the  accomplishment  of  duty.  Or  again,  He  might  have 
referred  them  to  those  passages  in  their  own  Prophets,  which  pointed 
out  that,  in  the  sight  of  God,  the  true  fasting  is  not  mere"  abstinence 
from  food  while  all  the  time  the  man  is  "  smiting  with  the  fist  of  wick- 
edness ; "  but  rather  to  love  mercy,  and  to  do  justice,  and  to  let  the  op- 
pressed go  free."  But  instead  of  all  these  lessons,  which,  in  their  present 
state,  might  only  have  exasperated  their  prejudices.  He  answers  them  only 
by  a  gentle  cxrgii7nc7itum  ad  homincm.  Referring  to  the  fine  image  in  which 
their  f)wn  beloved  and  revered  teacher  had  spoken  of  Him  as  the  bride- 
groom. He  contented  Himself  with  asking  them,  "Can  ye  make  the 
children  of  the  bride-chamber  fast,^  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ?" 
and  then,  looking  calmly  down  at  the  deep  abyss  which  yawned  before 
Him,  He  uttered  a  saying  which — although  at  that  time  none  probably 
understood  it — was  perhaps  the  very  earliest  public  intimation  that  He 
gave  of  the  violent  end  which  awaited  Him — "  But  the  days  will  come 
when  the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken  away  from  them,-'  and  then  shall 
they  fast  in  those  dajs."  Further  He  told  them,  in  words  of  yet  deeper 
significance,  though  expressed,  as  so  often,  in  the  homeliest  metaphors, 
that  His  religion  is,  as  it  were,  a  robe  entirely  new,  not  a  patch  of  un- 
teaseled  cloth  upon  an  old  robe,  serving  only  to  make  worse  its  original 
rents; 5  that  it  is  not  new  wine,  put  in  all  its  fresh  fermenting,  expan- 
sive strength,   into  old  and  worn  wine-skins,  and  so  serving  only   to  burst 

1  The  Day  of  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.  29  ;  Numb.  xxix.  7).  It  appears  that  in  the  period  of  the  exile  four 
annual  fasts  (in  the  fourth,  fifth,  seventh,  and  tenth  months)  had  sprung  up,  but  they  certainly  receive  no 
special  sanction  from  the  Prophets  (Zech.  viii.  19  ;  vii.  i — 12).  In  the  oldest  and  genuine  part  of  the 
Megillah  Taanilh,  which  emanated  from  the  schools  of  Hillel  and  Shammai,  there  is  merely  a  list  of  days  on 
which  fasting  and  mourning  are  forbidden.  It  will  be  found  with  a  translation  in  Derenbourg,  Hist.  Pales- 
tine, pp.  439—446. 

2  See  the  many  noble  and  splendid  utterances  of  the  prophets  to  this  effect  (Micah  vi.  6 — 8  ;  Hosea  vi. 
6  ;  xii.  6  ;  Amos  v.  21 — 24  ;  Isa.  i.  10 — 20). 

3  John  iii.  2g.  The  use  of  the  word  "  mourn,"  instead  of  "fast,"  in  Matt.  i.\.  15,  gives  still  greater 
point  to  the  question.  Fasting  was  a  sign  of  sorrow,  but  the  kingdom  of  God  was  a  kingdom  of  gladness, 
and  the  bridal  to  which  their  own  Master  had  compared  its  proclamation  was  a  time  of  joy.  The  disciples 
are  the  paranymphs,  the  children  of  the  bride-chamber.  a  thoroughly  Hebrew  metaphor  for  the  nearest 
friends  of  the  wedded  pair. 

4  A  dim  hint  of  the  same  kind  had  been  given  in  the  private  conversation  with  Nicodemus  (John  iii. 
14).  The  words  "  be  taken  away,"  clearly  implying  a  violent  termination  of  His  career,  which  is  here  used 
by  each  of  the  Synoptists  (Matt.  ix.  15  ;  Mark  ii.  20),  occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament. 

5  Matt.  ix.   16. 


THE  DAY  OF  MATTHEW'S  FEAST.  251 

the  wine-skins  and  be  lost,  but  new  wine  in  fresh  wine-skins.  The  new 
spirit  was  to  be  embodied  in  wholly  renovated  forms  ;  the  new  freedom 
was  to  be  untrammeled  by  obsolete  and  long  meaningless  limitations  ;  the 
spiritual  doctrine  was  to  be  sundered  for  ever  from  mere  elaborate  and 
external  ceremonials. 

St.  Luke  also  has  preserved  for  us  the  tender  and  remarkable  ad- 
dition— "  No  man  also  having  drunk  old  wine  straightway  desireth  new  : 
for  he  saith,  The  old  is  excellent."  Perhaps  the  fact  that  these  words 
were  found  to  be  obscure  has  caused  the  variety  of  readings  in  the 
original  text.  There  is  nothing  less  like  the  ordinary  character  of  man 
than  to  make  allowance  for  difference  of  opinion  in  matters  of  religion  ; 
yet  it  is  the  duty  of  doing  this  which  the  words  imply.  He  had  been 
showing  them  that  His  kingdom  was  something  more  than  a  restitution, 
it  was  a  re-creation  ;  but  He  knew  how  hard  it  was  for  men  trained  in 
the  tradition  of  the  Pharisees,  and  in  admiration  for  the  noble  asceticism 
of  the  Baptist,  to  accept  truths  which  were  to  them  both  new  and 
strange ;  and,  therefore,  even  when  He  is  endeavoring  to  lighten  their 
darkness.  He  shows  that  He  can  look  on  them  "with  larger  other  eyes.* 
to  make  allowance  for  them  all." 


CHAPTER     XXV. 

THE    DAY    OF    MATTHEW's    FEAST    {continued). 


1^=041.^ 


"  Is  there  no  physician  there?" — Jer.  viii.  22. 


HE  feast  was  scarcely  over  at  the  house  of  Mat- 
thew," and  Jesus  was  still  engaged  in  the  kindly 
teaching  which  arose  out  of  the  question  of 
John's  disciples,  when  another  event  occurred 
which  led  in  succession  to  three  of  the  greatest 
miracles  of  His  earthly  life." 

A  ruler  of  the  synagogue — the  ros/i  hak- 
kendscth,  or  chief  elder  of  the  congregation,  to 
whom  the  Jews  looked  with  great  respect — came 
to  Jesus  in  extreme  agitation.  It  is  not  im- 
probable that  this  ruler  of  the  synagogue  had 
been  one  of  the  very  deputation  who  had  pleaded 
with  Jesus  for  the  centurion-proselyte  by  whom 
it  had  been  built.  If  so,  he  knew  by  experience 
the  power  of  Him  to  whom  he  now  appealed.  Flinging  himself  at 
His  feet  with  broken  words ^ — which  in  the  original  still  sound  as 
though  they  were  interrupted  and  rendered  incoherent  by  bursts  of 
grief— he  tells  Him  that  his  little  daughter,  his  only  daughter,  is  dying, 
is  dead;  but  still,  if  He  will  but  come  and  lay  His  hand  upon  her, 
she  shall  live.  With  the  tenderness  which  could  not  be  deaf  to  a 
mourner's  cry,  Jesus  rose^  at  once  from  the  table,  and  went  with  him, 
followed  not  only  by  His  disciples,  but  also  by  a  dense  Expectant  multi- 
tude, which  had  been  witness  of  the  scene.  And  as  He  went  the  people 
in  their  eagerness  pressed  upon  Him  and  thronged   Him. 

1  The  note  of  time  in  Matt.  ix.  18,  "  while  He  spake  these  things  unto  them,"  is  here  quite  explicit ; 
and  St.  Matthew  is  most  likely  to  have  followed  the  exact  order  of  events  on  a  day  which  was  to  him  so 
memorable,  as  his  last  farewell  to  his  old  life  as  a  Galilean  publican. 

2  Matt.  ix.  18—26;  Mark  v.  22 — 43  ;  Luke  viii.  41 — 56. 

3  Mark  v.  23.  Considering  the  position  of  Jairus,  this  little  incident  strikingly  shows  the  estimation 
in  which  Jesus  was  held  at  this  time  even  by  men  of  leading  position. 

4  Matt.  ix.  ig. 


THE  DAY  OF  MATTHEWS  FEAST.  253 

But  among  this  throng — containing  doubtless  some  of  the  Pharisees 
and  of  John's  disciples  with  whom  He  had  been  discoursing,  as  well  as 
some  of  the  publicans  and  sinners  with  whom  He  had  been  seated  at 
the  feast — there  was  one  who  had  not  been  attracted  by  curiosity  to 
witness  what  would  be  done  for  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue.  It  was  a 
woman  who  for  twelve  years  had  suffered  from  a  distressing  malady, 
which  unfitted  her  for  all  the  relationships  of  life,  and  which  was  pecul- 
iarly afflicting,  because  in  the  popular  mind  it  was  regarded  as  a  direct 
consequence  of  sinful  habits.  In  vain  had  she  wasted  her  substance  and 
done  fresh  injury  to  her  health  in  the  effort  to  procure  relief  from  many 
different  physicians,'  and  now,  as  a  last  desperate  resource,  she  would 
try  what  could  be  gained  without  money  and  without  price  from  the 
Great  Physician.  Perhaps,  in  her  ignorance,  it  was  because  she  had  no 
longer  any  reward  to  offer ;  perhaps  because  she  was  ashamed  in  her 
feminine  modesty  to  reveal  the  malady  from  which  she  had  been  suffer- 
ing ;  but  from  whatever  cause,  she  determined,  as  it  were,  to  steal  from 
Him,  unknown,  the  blessing  for  which  she  longed.  And  so,  with  the 
strength  and  pertinacity  of  despair,  she  struggled  in  that  dense  throng 
until  she  was  near  enough  to  touch  Him  ;  and  then,  perhaps  all  the  more 
violently  from  her  extreme  nervousness,  she  grasped  the  white  fringe  of 
His  robe.  By  the  law  of  Moses  every  Jew  was  to  wear  at  each  corner 
of  his  talltth  a  fringe  or  tassel,  bound  by  a  thread  of  symbolic  blue,  to 
remind  him  that  he  was  holy  to  God."  Two  of  these  fringes  usually 
hung  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  robe ;  two  hung  over  the  shoulders 
where  the  robe  was  folded  round  the  person.  It  was  probably  one  of 
these  that  she  touched'  with  secret  and  trembling  haste,  and  then,  feel- 
ing instantly  that  she  had  gained  her  desire  and  was  healed,  she  shrunk 
back  unnoticed  into  the  throng.  Unnoticed  by  others,  but  not  by  Christ. 
Perceiving  that  healing  power  had  gone  out  of  Him,  recognizing  the  one 
magnetic  touch  of  timid  faith  even  amid  the  pressure  of  the  crowd.  He 
stopped  and  asked,  "Who  touched  my  clothes?"  There  was  something 
almost    impatient    in    the  reply  of    Peter,  as  though  in  such  a  throng  he 

1  Mark  v.  26.  The  physician  Evangelist  St.  Luke  (viii.  43)  mentions  that  in  this  attempt  she  had 
wasted  all  her  substance.  This  might  well  have  been  the  case  if  they  had  recommended  to  her  nothing 
better  than  the  strange  Talmudic  recipes  mentioned  by  Lightfoot.  The  recipes  are  not,  however,  worse 
than  those  given  by  Luther  in  his  Table  Talk,  who  (in  the  old  English  translation  of  the  book)  exclaims, 
"  How  great  is  the  mercy  of  God  who  has  put  such  healing  virtue  in  all  manner  of  muck  !" 

2  Numb.  XV.  37 — 40;  Deut.  xxii.  12.  The  Hebrew  word  is  kanephdth,  literally,  "wings  ;"  and  the 
white  tassels  with  their  blue  or  purple  thread  were  called  tsitsith. 

3  It  is  not  easy  to  stoop  down  in  a  thick  moving  crowd,  nor  could  she  have  done  so  unobserved. 


254  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

thought  it  absurd  to  ask,  "Who  touched  me?"  But  Jesus,  His  eyes  still 
wandering  over  the  many  faces,  told  him  that  there  was  a  difference  betwen 
the  crowding  of  curiosity  and  the  touch  of  faith,  and  as  at  last  His  glance  fell 
on  the  poor  woman,  she,  perceiving  that  she  had  erred  in  trying  to  filch  the 
blessing  which  He  would  have  graciously  bestowed,  came  forward  fearing 
and  trembling,  and,  flinging  herself  at  His  feet,  told  Him  all  the  truth. 
All  her  feminine  shame  and  fear  were  forgotten  in  her  desire  to  atone 
for  her  fault.  Doubtless  she  dreaded  His  anger,  for  the  law  expressly 
ordained  that  the  touch  of  one  afflicted  as  she  was,  caused  ceremonial 
uncleanness  till  the  evening."  But  His  touch  had  cleansed  her,  not  hers 
polluted  Him.  So  far  from  being  indignant.  He  said  to  her,  "  Daughter" 
— and  at  once  the  sound  of  that  gracious  word  sealed  her  pardon — "  go 
for  peace:"   thy  faith  hath  saved  thee;    be  healed  from  thy  disease." 

The  incident  must  have  caused  a  brief  delay,  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  anguish  of  Jairus  every  instant  was  critical.  But  he  was  not  the 
only  sufferer  who  had  a  claim  on  the  Saviour's  mercy  ;  and,  as  he  uttered 
no  complaint,  it  is  clear  that  sorrow  had  not  made  him  selfish.  But  at 
this  moment  a  messenger  reached  him  with  the  brief  message — "  Thy 
daughter  is  dead  ; "  and  then,  apparently  with  a  touch  of  dislike  and 
irony,  he  added,    "Worry  not  the  Rabbi."  ^ 

The  message  had  not  been  addressed  to  Jesus,  but  He  overheard 
it,  *  and  with  a  compassionate  desire  to  spare  the  poor  father  from  need- 
less agony.  He  said  to  him  those  memorable  words,  "  Fear  not,  only 
believe."  They  soon  arrived  at  his  house,  and  found  it  occupied  by  the 
hired  mourners  and  flute-players,  who,  as  they  beat  their  breasts,  with 
mercenary  clamor,  insulted  the  dumbness  of  sincere  sorrow,  and  the 
patient  majesty  of  death.  Probably  this  simulated  wailing  would  be  very 
repulsive  to  the  soul  of  Christ ;  and  first  stopping  at  the  door  to  forbid 
any  of  the  multitude  to  follow  Him,  He  entered  the  house  with  three 
only  of  the  inmost  circle  of    His  Apostles — Peter,  and  James,  and  John. 

1  Lev.  XV.  19.     The  Pharisees  shrunk  from  a  woman's  touch,  as  they  do  now. 

2  As  before  (Luke  vii.  50),  this  corresponds  to  the  Hebrew  expression.  Our  Lord  addressed  no  other 
woman  by  the  title  "  Daughter."  Legend  has  assigned  to  this  woman  Veronica  as  a  name,  and  Paneas 
(Csesarea  Philippi)  as  a  residence.  An  ancient  statue  of  bronze  at  this  place  was  believed  to  represent 
her  in  the  act  of  touching  the  fringe  of  Christ's  robe  ;  and  Eusebius  and  Sozomen  both  mention  this 
statue,  which  is  believed  to  have  been  so  curious  a  testimony  to  the  reality  of  Christ's  miracle  that  Julian 
the  Apostate — or,  according  to  another  account,  Maximus — is  charged  with  having  destroyed  it. 

3  The  curious  word  axWiXf,  something  like  our  "worry,"  or  "bother,"  is  used  here,  and  here  alone 
(except  in  Luke  vii.  6),  by  both  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke.  (The  eauvXfiivoi  of  Matt.  ix.  36  is  a  dubious 
reading.) 

4  Mark  v.  36,  "over-hearing."     The  word  occurs  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament. 


THE  DAY  OF  MATTHEWS  FEAST.  255 

On  entering,  His  first  care  was  to  still  the  idle  noise;  but  when  His 
kind  declaration — "The  little  maid"  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth" — was 
only  received  with  coarse  ridicule,  He  indignantly  ejected  the  paid 
mourners.'  When  calm  was  restored,  He  took  with  Him  the  father  and 
the  mother  and  His  three  Apostles,  and  entered  with  quiet  reverence 
the  chamber  hallowed  by  the  silence  and  awfulness  of  death.  Then, 
taking  the  little  cold  dead  hand.  He  uttered  these  two  thrilling  words, 
"  Talitha  cumi" — "  Little  maid,  arise  \" ^  and  her  spirit  returned,  and  the 
child  arose  and  walked.  An  awful  amazement  seized  the  parents;''  but 
Jesus  calmly  bade  them  give  the  child  some  food.  And  if  He  added 
His  customary  warning  that  they  should  not  speak  of  what  had  happened, 
it  was  not  evidently  in  the  intention  that  the  entire  fact  should  remain 
unknown — for  that  would  have  been  impossible,  when  all  the  circum- 
stances had  been  witnessed  by  so  many — but  because  those  who  have 
received  from  God's  hand  unbounded  mercy  are  more  likely  to  reverence 
that  mercy  with  adoring  gratitude  if  it  be  kept  like  a  hidden  treasure  in 
the  inmost  heart. 

Crowding  and  overwhelming  as  had  been  the  incidents  of  this  long 
night  and  day,  it  seems  probable  from  St.  Matthew  that  it  was  signalized 
by  yet  one  more  astonishing  work  of  power.  For  as  He  departed  thence 
two  blind  men  followed  Him  with  the  cry — as  yet  unheard — "Son  of 
David,  have  mercy  on  us."  Already  Christ  had  begun  to  check,  as  it 
were,  the  spontaneity  of  His  miracles.  He  had  performed  more  than 
sufficient  to  attest  His  power  and  mission,  and  it  was  important  that  men 
should  pay  more  heed  to  His  divine  eternal  teaching  than  to  His  tem- 
poral healings.  Nor  would  He  as  yet  sanction  the  premature,  and  per- 
haps ill-considered,  use  of  the  Messianic  title  "  Son  of  David " — a  title 
which,  had  He  publicly  accepted  it,  might  have  thwarted  His  sacred  pur- 
poses, by  leading  to  an  instantaneous  revolt  in  His  favor  against  the 
Roman  power.  Without  noticing  the  men  or  their  cry,  He  went  to  the 
house  in  Capernaum  where  He  abode  ;  nor  was  it  until  they  had  per- 
sistently followed  Him  into  the  house  that  He  tested  their  faith  by  the 
question,  "  Believe  ye  that  I  am  able  to  do  this?"     They  said  unto  Him, 

1  Mark  v.  39.     She  was  twelve  years  old. 

2  Mark  v.  40. 

3  Doubtless  St.  Peter,  who  was  actually  present,  told  his  friend  and  kinsman  Mark  the  actual  words 
which  Christ  had  used.  They  are  interesting  also  *s  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  language  which  He 
generally  spoke. 

4  Mark  v.  42. 


256  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

"Yea,  Lord."  Then  touched  He  their  eyes,  saying,  "According  to  your 
faith  be  it  unto  you."  And  their  eyes  were  opened.  Like  so  many 
whom  He  healed,  they  neglected  His  stern  command  not  to  reveal 
it."  There  are  some  who  have  admired  their  disobedience,  and  have  attrib- 
uted it  to  the  enthusiasm  of  gratitude  and  admiration  ;  but  was  it  not  rather 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  blatant  wonder,  the  vulgarity  of  a  chattering  boast  ? 
How  many  of  these  multitudes  who  had  been  healed  by  Him  became 
His  true  disciples?  Did  not  the  holy  fire  of  devotion  whicli  a  hallowed 
silence  must  have  kept  alive  upon  the  altar  of  their  hearts  die  away  in 
the  mere  blaze  of  empty  rumor?  Did  not  He  know  best?  Would  not 
obedience  have  been  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of 
rams  ?  Yes.  It  is  possible  to  deceive  ourselves  ;  it  is  possible  to  offer 
to  Christ  a  seeming  service  which  disobeys  His  inmost  precepts — to  grieve 
Him,  under  the  guise  of  honoring  Him,  by  vain  repetitions,  and  empty 
genuflections,  and  bitter  intolerance,  and  irreverent  familiarity,  and  the 
hollow  simulacrum  of  a  dead  devotion.  Better,  far  better,  to  serve  Him 
by  doing  the  things  He  said  than  by  a  seeming  zeal,  often  false  in  exact 
proportion  to  its  obtrusiveness,  for  the  glory  of  His  name.  These  diso- 
bedient babblers,  who  talked  so  much  of  Him,  did  but  offer  Him  the 
the  dishonoring  service  of  a  double  heart ;  their  violation  of  His  com- 
mandment served  only  to  hinder  His  usefulness,  to  trouble  His  spirit, 
and  to  precipitate  His  death. 

I  Matt.  ix.   27 — 31. 


CHRIST    HEAI.IXi;     TWO    KI.INU    MEN— Man 


CHRIST   FEEDING  THE   MULTITUDE.— John  vi.   1-14. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 


A     VISIT     TO     JERUSALEM. 


"  Simplicity  is  the  best  viaticum  for  the  Christian." — Clem.  Alex. 

NY  one  who  has  carefully  and  repeatedly  studied 
the  Gospel  narratives  side  by  side,  in  order  to 
form  from  them  as  clear  a  conception  as  is  pos- 
sible of  the  life  of  Christ  on  earth,  can  hardly 
fail  to  have  been  struck  with  two  or  three  gen- 
eral facts  respecting  the  sequence  of  events  in 
His  public  ministry.  In  spite  of  the  difificulty 
introduced  by  the  varying  and  non-chronological 
arrangements  of  the  Synoptists,  and  by  the 
silence  of  the  fourth  Gospel  about  the  main  part 
of  the  preaching  in  Galilee,  we  see  distinctly 
the  following  circumstances  : — 

I.  That  the  innocent  enthusiasm  of  joyous 
welcome  with  which  Jesus  and  His  words  and 
works  were  at  first  received  in  Northern  Galilee  gradually,  but  in  a  short 
space  of  time,  gave  way  to  suspicion,  dislike,  and  even  hostility  on  the 
part  of  large  and  powerful  sections  of  the  people. 

2.  That  the  external  character,  as  well  as  the  localities,  of  our  Lord's 
mission  were  much  altered  after  the  murder  of  John  the  Baptist. 

3.  That  the  tidings  of  this  murder,  together  with  a  marked  develop- 
ment of  opposition,  and  the  constant  presence  of  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
from  Judea  to  watch  His  conduct  and  dog  His  movements,  seems  to 
synchronize  with  a  visit  to  Jerusalem  not  recorded  by  the  Synoptists,  but 
evidently  identical  with  the  nameless  festival  mentioned  in  John  v.    i. 

4.  That  this  unnamed  festival  must  have  occurred  somewhere  about 
that  period  of  His  ministry  at  which  we  have  now  arrived. 

What  this  feast  was  we  shall  consider  immediately ;  but  it  was  pre- 
ceded by  another  event — the  mission  of  the  Twelve  Apostles. 

At  the  close  of  the  missionary  journeys,  during  which  occurred  some 


258  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  the  events  described  in  the  last  chapters,  Jesus  was  struck  with  com- 
passion at  the  sight  of  the  multitude.'  They  reminded  Him  of  sheep 
harassed  by  enemies,  and  lying  panting  and  neglected  in  the  fields  be- 
cause they  have  no  shepherd.  They  also  called  up  to  the  mind  the 
image  of  a  harvest  ripe,  but  unreaped  for  lack  of  laborers;  and  He  bade 
His  Apostles  pray  to  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  that  He  would  send  forth 
laborers  into  His  harvest.  And  then,  immediately  afterwards,  having 
Himself  now  traversed  the  whole  of  Galilee,  He  sent  them  out  two  and 
two  to  confirm  His  teaching  and  perform  works  of  mercy  in  His 
name." 

Before  sending  them  He  naturally  gave  them  the  instructions  which 
were  to  guide  their  conduct.  At  present  they  were  to  confine  their  mis- 
sion to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  and  not  extend  it  to  Sam- 
aritans or  Gentiles.  The  topic  of  their  preaching  was  to  be  the  near- 
ness of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  it  was  to  be  freely  supported  by 
works  of  power  and  beneficence.  They  were  to  take  nothing  with  them; 
no  scrip  for  food;  no  purse  for  money;  no  change  of  raiment;'  no  travel- 
ing shoes  in  place  of  their  ordinary  palm-bark  sandals ;  they  were  not 
even  to  procure  a  staff  for  the  journey  if  they  did  not  happen  already 
to  possess  one;*  their  mission — like  all  the  greatest  and  most  effective 
missions  which  the  world  has  ever  known — was  to  be  simple  and  self- 
supporting.  The  open  hospitality  of  the  East,  so  often  used  as  the  basis 
for  a  dissemination  of  new  thoughts,  would  be  ample  for  their  mainte- 
nance.5  On  entering  a  town  they  were  to  go  to  any  house  in  it  where 
they  had  reason  to  hope  that  they  would  be  welcome,  and  to  salute  it 
with  the  immemorial  and  much-valued  blessing,  Shalom  lakcm,''  "  Peace  be 

1  Matt.  ix.  35 — 38.  , 

2  Matt.  X.  I — 42  ;  Mark  vi.  7 — 13  ;  Luke  ix.  I — 6. 

3  Few  ordinary  peasants  in  the  East  can  boast  of  a  change  of  garments.  They  even  sleep  in  the 
clothes  which  they  wear  during  the  day. 

4  That  this  was  the  meaning  of  the  injunctions  appears  from  a  comparison  of  the  three  Evangelists. 

5  Renan  notices  the  modern  analogy.  When  traveling  in  the  East  no  one  need  ever  scruple  to  go  into 
the  best  house  of  any  Arab  village  to  which  he  comes,  and  he  will  always  be  received  with  profuse  and 
gratuitous  hospitality.  From  the  moment  we  entered  any  house,  it  was  regarded  as  our  own.  There  is 
not  an  Arab  you  meet  who  will  not  empty  for  you  the  last  drop  in  his  water-skin,  or  share  with  you  his  last 
piece  of  black  bread.     The  Rabbis  said  that  Paradise  was  the  reward  of  willing  hospitality. 

6  It  was  believed  to  include  every  blessing.  Have  not  our  missionaries  sometimes  erred  from  forget- 
ting the  spirit  of  this  injunction  ?  It  has  been  too  caustically  and  bitterly  said— and  yet  the  saying  may- 
find  some  occasional  justification — that  missionaries  have  too  often  proceeded  on  the  plan  of  (i)  discover- 
ing all  the  prejudices  of  a  people,  and  (2)  shocking  them.  Doubtless  this  has  been  only  due  to  an  ill- 
guided  zeal ;  but  so  did  not  St.  Paul.  He  was  most  courteous  and  most  conciliatory  in  his  address  to  the 
Athenians,  and  he  lived  for  three  and  a  half  years  at  Ephesus,  without  once  reviling  or  insulting  thf 
worshippers  of  Artemis. 


A  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM.  259 

to  you,"  and  if  the  children  of  peace  were  there  the  blessing  would  be 
effective ;  if  not,  it  would  return  on  their  own  heads.  If  rejected,  they 
were  to  shake  off  the  dust  of  their  feet  in  witness  that  they  had  spaken 
faithfully,  and  that  they  thus  symbolically  ckared  themselves  of  all  re- 
sponsibility for  that  judgment  which  should  fall  more  heavily  on  willful 
and  final  haters  of  the  light  than  on  the  darkest  places  of  a  heathendom 
in  which  the  light  had  never,  or  but  feebly,  shone. 

So  far  their  Lord  had  pointed  out  to  them  the  duties  of  trustful 
faith,  of  gentle  courtesy,  of  self-denying  simplicity,  as  the  first  essentials 
of  missionary  success.  He  proceeded  to  fortify  them  against  the  inevi- 
table trials  and  persecutions  of  their  missionary  work. 

They  needed  and  were  to  exercise  the  wisdom  of  serpents  no  less  than  the 
harmlessness  of  doves  ;  for  He  was  sending  them  forth  as  sheep  among  wolves. 

Doubtless  these  discourses  were  not  always  delivered  in  the  continuous 
form  in  which  they  have  naturally  come  down  to  us.  Our  Lord  seems 
at  all  times  to  have  graciously  encouraged  the  questions  of  humble  and 
earnest  listeners ;  and  at  this  point  we  are  told  by  an  ancient  tradition 
that  St.  Peter — ever,  we  may  be  sure,  a  most  eager  and  active-minded 
listener— interrupted  his  Master  with  the  not  unnatural  question,  "  But 
how  then  if  the  wolves  should  tear  the  lambs?"  And  Jesus  answered, 
smiling  perhaps  at  the  naive  and  literal  intellect  of  His  chief  Apostle, 
"  Let  not  the  lambs  fear  the  wolves  when  the  lambs  are  once  dead,  and 
do  you  fear  not  those  who  can  kill  you  and  do  nothing  to  you,  but  fear 
Him  who  after  you  are  dead  hath  power  over  soul  and  body  to  cast  them 
into  hell-fire."  And  then,  continuing  the  thread  of  His  discourse.  He 
warned  them  plainly  how,  both  at  this  time  and  again  long  afterwards, 
they  might  be  brought  before  councils,  and  scourged  in  synagogues, '  and 
stand  at  the  judgment  bar  of  kings,  and  yet,  without  any  anxious  pre- 
meditation," the  Spirit  should  teach  them  what  to  say.  The  doctrine  of 
peace  should  be  changed  by  the  evil  passions  of  men  into  a  war-cry  of 
fury  and  hate,  and  they  might  be  driven  to  fly  before  the  face  of  enemies 
from  city  to  city.  Still  let  them  endure  to  the  end,  for  before  they  had 
gone  through  the  cities  of  Israel,  the  Son  of  Man  should  have  come.  ^ 

1  Deut.  xvi.  18.  For  the  power  of  the  synagogue  officers  to  punish  by  scourging,  see  Acts  v.  40; 
2  Cor.  xi.   24. 

2  Matt.  X.  19.  The  "  take  no  thought"  of  the  A.  V.  is  too  strong;  as  in  Matt.  vi.  25,  it  means  "be  not 
over-anxious  about." 

3.  This  glance  into  the  farther  future  probably  belongs  to  a  much  later  discourse;  and  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  Man  is  here  understood  in  its  first  and  narrower  signification  of  the  downfall  of  Judaism,  and 
the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth,  which  some  at  least  among  them  lived  to  see. 


26o  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Then,  lastly,  He  at  once  warned  and  comforted  them  by  reminding 
them  of  what  He  Himself  had  suffered,  and  how  He  had  been  opposed. 
Let  them  not  fear.  The  God  who  cared  even  for  the  little  birds  when 
they  fell  to  the  ground" — the  God  by  whom  the  very  hairs  of  their  head 
were  numbered — the  God  who  (and  here  he  glanced  back  perhaps  at  the 
question  of  Peter)  held  in  His  hand  the  issues,  not  of  life  and  death  only, 
but  of  eternal  life  and  of  etanial  death,  and  who  was  therefore  more  to 
be  feared  than  the  wolves  of  earth — He  was  with  them ;  He  would 
acknowledge  those  whom  His  Son  acknowledged,  and  deny  those  whom 
He  denied.  They  were  being  sent  forth  into  a  world  of  strife,  which 
would  seem  even  the  more  deadly  because  of  the  peace  which  it  rejected. 
Even  their  nearest  and  their  dearest  might  side  with  the  world  against 
them.  But  they  who  would  be  His  true  followers  must  for  His  sake 
give  up  all;  must  even  take  up  their  cross"  and  follow  Him.  But  then, 
for  their  comfort.  He  told  them  that  they  should  be  as  He  was  in  the 
world;  that  they  who  received  them  should  receive  Him;  that  to  lose 
their  lives  for  His  sake  would  be  to  more  than  find  them;  that  a  cup  of 
cold  water  given  to  the  youngest  and  humblest  of  His  little  ones'  should 
not  miss  of  its  reward. 

Such  is  an  outline  of  these  great  parting  instructions  as  given  by  St. 
Matthew,  and  every  missionary  and  every  minister  should  write  them  in 
letters  of  gold.  The  sterility  of  missionary  labor  is  a  constant  subject  of 
regret  and  discouragement  among  us.  Would  it  be  so  if  all  our  missions 
were  carried  out  in  this  wise  and  conciliatory,  in  this  simple  and  self-aband- 
oning, in  this  faithful  and  dauntless  spirit  ?  Was  a  missionary  ever  unsuc- 
cessful who,  being  enabled  by  the  grace  of  God  to  live  in  the  light  of  such 
precepts  as  these,  *  worked  as  St.  Paul  worked,  or  St.  Francis  Xavier,  or 
Henry  Martyn,    or  Adoniram  Judson,  or  John    Eliot,  or  David  Schwarz  ? 

1  Matt.  X.  29.  Little  birds  are  still  strung  together  and  sold  for  "two  farthings"  in  the  towns  of 
Palestine. 

2  If  this  were  not  a  proverbial  illusion  (as  seems  probable  from  its  use  in  Plutarch)  it  must  have  been 
a  dark  saying  to  the  Apostles  at  this  time.  Perhaps  it  belongs  to  a  much  later  occasion,  after  He  had  dis- 
tinctly prophesied  the  certainty  and  nature  of  His  future  suflferings. 

3  Alford  ingeniously  conjectures  that  some  children  may  have  been  present. 

4  Of  course  I  do  not  imply  that  a  missionary  is  bound  to  serve  gratuitously;  that  would  be  against  the 
distinct  statement  of  our  Lord  (Matt  x.  10,  tl);  yet  there  are  occasions  when  even  this  may  be  desirable 
(I  Cor.  ix.  15 — 19;  2  Cor.  xi.  9 — 12;  i  Thess.  ii.  9,  &c.).  But  Christ  meant  all  His  commands  to  be  inter- 
preted according  to  their  spirit,  and  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  this  method  of  preaching  was  (and 
is)  made  more  common  and  easy  in  the  East  than  for  us.  "  Nor  was  there  in  this,"  says  Dr.  Thomson, 
"  any  departure  from  the  simple  manners  of  the  country.  At  this  day  the  farmer  sets  out  on  excursions 
quite  as  extensive  without  s.  para  in  his  purse,  and  the  modern  Moslem  prophet  of  Tarishiidehah  thus  sends 
forth  his  apostles  over  this  identical  region." 


A  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM.  261 

That  the  whole  of  this  discourse  was  not  delivered  on  this  occasion,"  that 
there  are  references  in  it  to  later  periods, "  that  parts  of  it  are  only  applic- 
able to  other  apostolic  missions  which  as  yet  lay  far  in  the  future,  * 
seems  clear ;  but  we  may,  nevertheless,  be  grateful  that  St.  Matthew, 
guided  as  usual  by  unity  of  subject,  collected  into  one  focus  the  scattered 
rays  of  instruction  delivered,  perhaps,  on  several  subsequent  occasions — 
as  for  instance,  before  the  sending  of  the  Seventy,  and  even  as  the  part- 
ing utterances  of  the  risen  Christ.  •• ' 

The  Jews  were  familiar  with  the  institution  of  ShelucJiim,  the  pleni- 
potentiaries of  some  higher  authority.  This  was  the  title  by  which  Christ 
seems  to  have  marked  out  the  position  of  His  Apostles.  It  was  a  wise 
and  merciful  provision  that  He  sent  them  out  two  and  two;'  it  enabled 
them  to  hold  sweet  converse  together,  and  mutually  to  correct  each 
other's  faults.  Doubtless  the  friends  and  the  brothers  went  in  pairs  ;  the 
fiery  Peter  with  the  more  contemplative  Andrew ;  the  Sons  of  Thunder 
— one  influential  and  commanding,  the  other  emotional  and  eloquent ;  the 
kindred  faith  and  guilessness  of  Philip  and  Bartholomew  ;  the  slow  but 
faithful  Thomas  with  the  thoughtful  and  devoted  Matthew  ;  James  with 
his  brother  Jude  ;  the  zealot  Simon  to  fire  with  his  theocratic  zeal  the 
dark,  flagging,  despairing  spirit  of  the  traitor  Judas. 

During  their  absence  Jesus  continued  His  work  alone,*  perhaps  as 
He  slowly  made  His  way  towards  Jerusalem;  for  if  we  can  speak  of 
probability  at  all  amid  the  deep  uncertainties  of  the  chronology  of  His 
ministry,  it  seems  extremely  probable  that  it  is  to  this  point  that  the 
verse  belongs— "After  this  there  was  a  feast  of  the  Jews,  and  Jesus  went 
up  to  Jerusalem."' 

In  order  not  to  break  the  continuity  of  the  narrative,  I  shall  omit  the 
discussion  here,  but  I  have  elsewhere  given  ample  reasons,  as  far  as  the 
text  is  concerned,  and  as  far  as  the  time  required  by  the  narrative  is 
concerned,  for  believing  that  this  nameless  feast  was  in  all  probability 
the  Feast  of  Purim. 

But  how  came  Jesus  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  for  such  a  feast  as  this — 

1  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  only  give,  at  this  juncture,  an  epitome  of  its  first  section. 

2  Ex.  gr.,  perhaps  some  of  the  expressions  in  verses  8,  23,  25,  38. 

3  Ex.gr.,  verses  l8 — 23. 

4  Cf.  Mark  xvi.  15 — 18;  Luke  x.  2 — 12;  Luke  xxiv.  47. 

5  The  Rabbis  held    it  a  fault  to  journey  without  a  friend  with  whom  to  converse  about  the  sacred 
Law. 

6  Matt.  xi.  I. 

7  John  v.  I.     Omitted  by  the  Synoptists,  who,  until  the  close,  narrate  only  the  ministry  in  Galilee. 


262  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

a  feast  which  was  the  saturnalia  of  Judaism  ;  a  feast  which  was  without 
divine  authority,"  and  had  its  roots  in  the  most  intensely  exclusive,  not 
to  say  vindictive,  feelings  of  the  nation  ;  a  feast  of  merriment  and  mas- 
querade, which  was  purely  social  and  often  discreditably  convivial;  a  feast 
which  was  unconnected  with  religious  services,  and  was  observed,  not  in 
the  Temple,  not  even  necessarily  in  the  synagogues,  but  mainly  in  the 
private  houses  of  the  Jews?" 

The  answer  seems  to  be  that,  although  Jesus  was  in  Jerusalem  at 
this  feast,  and  went  up  about  the  time  that  it  was  held,  the  words  of 
St.  John  do  not  necessarily  imply  that  He  went  up  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  being  present  at  this  particular  festival.  The  Passover  took 
place  only  a  month  afterwards,  and  He  may  well  have  gone  up  viainly 
with  the  intention  of  being  present  at  the  Passover,  although  He  gladly 
availed  himself  of  an  opportunity  for  being  in  Judea  and  Jerusalem  a 
month  before  it,  both  that  He  might  once  more  preach  in  those  neigh- 
borhoods, and  that  He  might  avoid  the  publicity  and  dangerous  excite- 
ment involved  in  His  joining  the  caravan  of  the  Passover  pilgrims  from 
Galilee.  Such  an  opportunity  may  naturally  have  arisen  from  the  absence 
of  the  Apostles  on  their  missionary  tour.  The  Synoptists  give  clear 
indications  that  Jesus  had  friends  and  well-wishers  at  Jerusalem  and  in  its 
vicinity.  He  must  therefore  have  paid  visits  to  those  regions  which  they  do 
not  record.  Perhaps  it  was  among  those  friends  that  He  awaited  the  return 
of  His  immediate  followers.  We  know  the  deep  affection  which  He  en- 
tertained for  the  members  of  one  household  in  Bethany,  and  it  is  not  un- 
natural to  suppose  that  He  was  now  living  in  the  peaceful  seclusion  of 
that  pious  household  as  a  solitary  and  honored  guest. 

But  even  if  St.  John  intends  us  to  believe  that  the  occurrence  of 
this  feast  was  the  immediate  cause  of  this  visit  to  Jerusalem,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  there  is  no  proof  whatever  of  its  having  been  in  our 
Lord's  time  the  fantastic  and  disorderly  commemoration  which  it  subse- 
quently became.  The  nobler-minded  Jews  doubtless  observed  it  in  a 
calm  and  grateful  manner  ;  and  as  one  part  of  the  festival  consisted  in 
showing  acts  of  kindness  to  the  poor,  it  may  have  offered  an  attraction 
to  Jesus  both  on  this  ground,  and  because  it  enabled  Him  to  show  that 
there  was  nothing  unnational  or  unpatriotic  in  the  universal  character  of 

I  To  such  an  extent  was  this  the  case,  that  no  less  than  eighty-five  elders  are  said  to  have  protested 
against  its  original  institution,  regarding  it  as  an  innovation  against  the  Law.  John  x.  22.  It  seems  to 
have  originated  among  the  Jews  of  the  dispersion. 

2.   Perhaps  more  nearly  resembling  in  its  origin  and  character  Guy  Fawkes'.  Day  than   anything  c!se. 


A  VISIT  TO  JERUSALEM.  263 

His  message,  or  the  all-embracing  infinitude  of  the  charity  which  He  both 
practiced  and  enjoined. 

There  remains  then  but  a  single  question.  The  Passover  was  rapidly- 
drawing  near,  and  His  presence  at  that  great  feast  would  on  every 
ground  be  expected.  Why  then  did  He  absent  Himself  from  it?  Why 
did  He  return  to  Galilee  instead  of  remaining  at  Jerusalem  ?  The 
events  which  we  are  about  to  narrate  will  furnish  'a  sufficient  answer  to 
this  question. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


THE     MIRACLE     AT     BETHESDA. 


"  The  lewish  teachers  have  got  into  endless  talk,  alleging  that  one  kind  of  shoe  is  a  burden,  and  not 
another  kind,  &c." — Origen. 

HERE  was  in  Jerusalem,  near  the  Sheep-gate, 
a  pool,  which  was  believed  to  possess  remarka- 
ble healing  properties.  For  this  reason,  in  ad- 
dition to  its  usual  name,  it  had  been  called  in 
Hebrew  "  Bethesda,"  or  the  House  of  Mercy,' 
and  under  the  porticoes  which  adorned  the 
pentagonal  masonry  in  which  it  was  inclosed 
lay  a  multitude  of  sufferers  from  blindness, 
lameness,  and  atrophy,  waiting  to  take  advantage 
of  the  bubbling  and  gushing  of  the  water,  which 
showed  that  its  medicinal  properties  were  at 
their  highest.  There  is  no  indication  in  the  narrative  that 
any  one  who  thus  used  the  water  was  at  once,  or  miracu- 
lously, healed  ;  but  the  repeated  use  of  an  intermittent  and 
gaseous  spring— and  more  than  one  of  the  springs  about 
Jerusalem  continue  to  be  of  this  character  to  the  present  day — was 
doubtless  likely  to  produce  most  beneficial  results. 

A  very  early  popular  legend,  which  has    crept    by  interpolation    into 
the  text  of  St.  John,"  attributed    the    healing    qualities    of    the    water  to 

1  John  V.  2,  "surnamed."  There  are  great  varieties  of  reading  ;  Tischendorf  reads  "  Bethzatha." 
Perhaps  this  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  silence  of  Josephus,  who  may  mention  it  under  another  name 
The  pool  now  pointed  out  to  the  traveler  as  Bethesda  is  Birket  Israel,  which  seems,  however,  to  have  formed 
part  of  the  deep  fosse  round  the  Tower  of  Antonia.  The  pool  may  have  been  the  one  now  known  as  the  Foun- 
tain of  the  Virgin,  not  far  from  Siloam,  and  connected  with  it  (as  Dr.  Robinson  discovered)  by  a  subter- 
ranean passage.  He  himself  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  the  inftrmitient  character  of  this  fountain, 
which,  he  was  told,  bubbles  up  "at  irregular  intervals,  sometimes  two  and  three  times  a  day,  and  some- 
times in  summer  once  in  two  or  three  days." 

2  The  weight  of  evidence  both  external  and  internal  against  the  genuineness  of  John  v.  3,  4,  seems  to 
me  overwhelming,  i.  It  is  omitted  by  not  a  few  of  the  weightiest  MSS,  and  versions.  2.  In  others  in 
which  t  does  occur  it  is  obelized  as  dubious.  3.  It  abounds  in  various  readings,  showing  that  there  is 
something  suspicious  about  it.  4.  It  contains  in  the  short  compass  of  a  few  lines  no  less  than  seven 
words  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament,  or  only  found  with  a  different  sense.  5.  It  relates  a 
most  startling  fact,  one  wholly  unlike  anything  else  in   Scripture,  one  not  alluded  to  by  a  single  other 


THE  MIRACLE  AT  BETHESDA.  265 

the  descent  of  an  angel  who  troubled  the  pool  at  irregular  intervals, 
leaving  the  first  persons  who  could  scramble  into  it  to  profit  by  the 
immersion.  This  solution  of  the  phenomenon  was  in  fact  so  entirely  in 
accordance  with  the  Semitic  habit  of  mind,  that,  in  the  universal  ignor- 
ance of  all  scientific  phenomena,  and  the  utter  indifference  to  close  in- 
vestigation which  characterize  most  Orientals,  the  populace  would  not  be 
likely  to  trouble  themselves  about  the  possibility  of  any  other  explana- 
tion. But  whatever  may  have  been  the  general  belief  about  the  cause. 
the  /aci  that  the  water  was  found  at  certain  intervals  to  be  impregnated 
with  gases  which  gave  it  a  strengthening  property,  was  sufficient  to 
attract  a  concourse  of  many  sufferers. 

Among  these  was  one  poor  man  who,  for  no  less  than  thirty-eight 
years,  had  been  lamed  by  paralysis.  He  had  haunted  the  porticoes  of 
this  pool,  but  without  effect ;  for  as  he  was  left  there  unaided,  and  as 
the  motion  of  the  water  occurred  at  irregular  times,  others  more  fortunate 
and  less  feeble  than  himself  managed  time  after  time  to  struggle  in 
before  him,  until  the  favorable  moment  had  been  lost. ' 

Jesus  looked  on  the  man  with  heartfelt  pity.  It  was  obvious  that 
the  wt7/  of  the  poor  destitute  creature  was  no  less  stricken  with  paralysis 
than  his  limbs,  and  his  whole  life  was  one  long  atrophy  of  ineffectual 
despair.  But  Jesus  was  minded  to  make  Hz's  Purim  present  to  the  poor, 
to  whom  He  had  neither  silver  nor  gold  to  give.  He  would  help  a 
fellow-sufferer,  whom  no  one   had  cared  or  condescended  to  help  before. 

"Wiliest  thou  to  be  made  whole?" 

At  first  the  words  hardly  stirred  the  man's  long  and  despondent 
lethargy ;  he  scarcely  seems  even  to  have  looked  up.  But  thinking,  per- 
haps, with  a  momentary  gleam  of  hope,  that  this  was  some  stranger 
who,  out  of  kindness  of  heart,  might  help  him  into  the  water  when  it 
was    again    agitated,    he     merely    narrated    in    reply  the    misery    of    his 

writer,  Jewish  or  heathen,  and  one  which,  had  there  been  the  slightest  ground  for  believing  in  its  truth, 
would  certainly  not  have  been  passed  over  in  silence  by  Josephus.  6.  Jts  insertion,  to  explain  the 
"  should  be  troubled,"  in  verse  7,  is  easily  accounted  for;  its  omission,  had  it  been  in  the  original  text,  is 
quite  inconceivable.  Accordingly,  it  is  rejected  from  the  text  by  the  best  editors  as  a  spurious  gloss,  and 
indeed  there  is  no  earlier  trace  of  its  existence  than  an  allusion  to  it  in  Ter*uUian, 

I  Strauss  and  his  school  make  all  kinds  of  objections  to  this  narrative.  "  Latterly,"  as  Lange 
observes,  with  cutting  sarcasm,  "  a  crowd  of  'critical'  remarks  have  been  seen  lying  round  the  pool  of 
Bethesda,  like  another  multitude  of  blind,  lame,  and  withered."  They  hold  it  impossible  that  the  man 
who,  as  they  assume,  must  have  had  some  one  to  take  him  to  the  pool,  never  had  any  one  to  put  him  in 
at  the  right  time.  Such  remarks  are  very  trivial,  i.  St.  John  says  nothing  of  any  one  bringing  him  to 
the  pool  ;  he  may  have  lived  close  by,  and  been  able  to  crawl  there  himself.  2.  He  does  not  say  that  the 
pool  wrought  instanlniuotis  cures,  or  that  the  man  had  never  been  put  into  the  troubled  water. 


266  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

long  and  futile  expectation.  Jesus  had  intended  a  speedier  and  more 
effectual  aid. 

"  Rise,"  He  said,  "  take  thy  couch,  and  walk." 

It  was  spoken  in  an  accent  that  none  could  disobey.  The  manner 
of  the  Speaker,  His  voice.  His  mandate,  thrilled  like  an  electric  spark 
through  the  withered  limbs  and  the  shattered  constitution,  enfeebled  by 
a  lifetime  of  suffering  and  sin."  After  thirty-eight  years  of  prostration, 
the  man  instantly  rose,  lifted  up  his  pallet,  and  began  to  walk."  In  glad 
amazement  he  looked  round  to  see  and  to  thank  his  unknown  bene- 
factor;  but  the  crowd  was  large,  and  Jesus,  anxious  to  escape  the 
unspiritual  excitement  which  would  fain  have  regarded  Him  as  a  thaum- 
aturge alone,  had  quietly  slipped  away  from  observation.^ 

In  spite  of  this,  many  scrupulous  and  jealous  eyes  were  soon  upon 
Him.  In  proportion  as  the  inner  power  and  meaning  of  a  religion  are 
dead,  in  that  proportion  very  often  is  an  exaggerated  import  attached 
to  its  outer  forms.  Formalism  and  indifference,  pedantic  scrupulosity  and 
absolute  disbelief,  are  correlative,  and  ever  flourish  side  by  side.  It  was 
so  with  Judaism  in  the  days  of  Christ.  Its  living  and  burning  enthusiasm 
was  quenched ;  its  lofty  and  noble  faith  had  died  away  ;  its  prophets  had 
ceased  to  prophesy  ;  its  poets  had  ceased  to  sing ;  its  priests  were  no 
longer  clothed  with  righteousness ;  its  saints  were  few.  The  ax  was  at 
the  root  of  the  barren  tree,  and  its  stem  served  only  to  nourish  a  fungous 
brood  of  ceremonials  and  traditions, 

"  Deathlike,  and  colored  like  a  corpse's  ch»ek." 

And  thus  it  was  that  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  which  had  been 
intended  to  secure  for  weary  men  a  rest  full  of  love  and  peace  and  mercy, 
had  become  a  mere  national  Fetish — a  barren  custom  fenced  in  with  the 
most  frivolous  and  senseless  restrictions.  Well-nigh  every  great  provision 
of  the  Mosaic  law  had  now  been  degraded  into  a  mere  superfluity  of 
meaningless  minutiae,  the  delight  ot  small  natures,  and  the  grievous  incu- 
bus of  all  true  and  natural  piety.  * 

Now,  when  a  religion  has  thus  decayed  into    a    superstition    without 

1  See  verse  14,  and  below. 

2  To  regard  such  a  trivial  effort  as  a  violation  of  the  Sabbath  was  a  piece  of  superstitious  literalism, 
not  derived  from  Scripture,  but  founded  on  the  Oral  Law. 

3  Ver.  13;  literally,  "swam  out." 

4  The  present  Jews  of  Palestine,  degraded  and  contemptible  as  is  their  condition — beggars,  idlers, 
cheats,  sensualists,  as  the  best  of  their  own  countrymen  confess  them  to  be — still  cling  to  all  their  Sabba- 
tarian superstitions  :  e.g.,  "  The  German  Jews  look  upon  it  as  a  sin  to  use  a  stick  of  any  kind  on  the  Sab- 
bath.— Dr.  Frankl. 


THE  MIRACLE  AT  BETHESDA.  267 

having  lost  its  external  power,  it  is  always  more  than  ever  tyrannous 
and  suspicious  in  its  hunting  for  heresy.  The  healed  paralytic  was  soon 
surrounded  by  a  group  of  questioners.  They  looked  at  him  with  sur- 
prise and  indignation. 

"  It  is  the  Sabbath  ;  it  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  carry  thy  bed." 

Here  was  a  flagrant  case  of  violation  of  their  law  Had  not  the  son 
of  Shelomith,  though  half  an  Egyptian,  been  stoned  to  death  for  gather- 
ing sticks  on  the  Sabbath  day?"  Had  not  the  prophet  Jeremiah  ex- 
pressly said,  "Take  heed  to  yourselves,  and  bear  no  burden  on  the  Sab- 
bath day  ?  " ' 

Yes ;  but  why  ?  Because  the  Sabbath  was  an  ordinance  of  mercy  in- 
tended to  protect  the  underlings  and  the  oppressed  from  a  life  of  inces- 
sant toil ;  because  it  was  essential  to  save  the  serfs  and  laborers  of  the 
nation  from  the  over-measure  of  labor  which  would  have  been  exacted 
from  them  in  a  nation  afflicted  with  the  besetting  sin  of  greed ;  because 
the  setting  apart  of  one  day  in  seven  for  sacred  rest  Avas  of  infinite  value 
to  the  spiritual  life  of  all.  That  was  the  meaning  of  the  Fourth  Com- 
mandment. It  what  respect  was  it  violated  by  the  fact  that  a  man  who 
had  been  healed  by  a  miracle  wished  to  carry  home  the  mere  pallet 
which  was  perhaps  almost  the  only  thing  that  he  possessed  ?  What  the 
man  really  violated  was  not  the  law  of  God,  or  even  of  Moses,  but  the 
wretched  formalistic  inferences  of  their  frigid  tradition,  which  had  gravely 
decided  that  on  the  Sabbath  a  nailed  shoe  might  not  be  worn  because 
it  was  a  burden,  but  that  an  un-nailed  shoe  might  be  worn  ;  and  that  a 
person  might  go  out  with  two  shoes  on,  but  not  with  only  one ;  and 
that  one  man  might  carry  a  loaf  of  bread,  but  that  two  men  might  not 
carry  it  between  them,  and  so  forth,  to  the  very  utmost  limit  of  tyrannous 
absurdity. 

"He  that  made  me  whole,"  replied  the  man,  "He  said  to  me.  Take 
up  thy  bed  and  walk." 

As  far  as  the  man  was  concerned,  they  accepted  the  plea ;  a  voice 
fraught  with  miraculous  power  so  stupendous  that  it  could  heal  the  im- 
potence of  a  lifetime  by  a  word,  was  clearly,  as  far  as  the  man  was  con- 
cerned, entitled  to  some  obedience.  And  the  fact  was  that  they  were 
actuated  by  a  motive  ;  they  were  flying  at  higher  game  than  this  insig- 
nificant and  miserable  sufferer.     Nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  worrying  him. 

I  Lev.  xxiv.  10 — 12  ;  Numb.  xv.  32 — 36. 
3  Jer.  xvii.  21. 


268  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

"  IV/io  is  it  that" — mark  the  malignity  of  these  Jewish  authorities' — 
not  that  made  thee  whole,  for  there  was  no  heresy  to  be  hunted  out  in 
the  mere  fact  of  exercising  miraculous  power — but  "  that  gave  thee  the 
wicked  command  to  take  up  thy  bed  and  walk?" 

So  little  apparently,  up  to  this  time,  was  the  person  of  Jesus  gener- 
ally known  in  the  suburbs  of  Jerusalem,  or  else  so  dull  and  languid  had 
been  the  man's  attention  while  Jesus  was  first  speaking  to  him,  that  he 
actually  did  not  know  who  his  benefactor  was.  But  he  ascertained  shortly 
afterwards.  It  is  a  touch  of  grace  about  him  that  we  next  find  him  in 
the  Temple,  whither  he  may  well  have  gone  to  return  thanks  to  God 
for  this  sudden  and  marvelous  renovation  of  his  wasted  life.  There,  too, 
Jesus  saw  him,  and  addressed  to  him  one  simple  memorable  warning, 
"See,  thou  hast  been  made  whole:  continue  in  sin  no  longer,  lest  some- 
thing worse  happen  to  thee."" 

Perhaps  the  warning  had  been  given  because  Christ  read  the  mean 
and  worthless  nature  of  the  man  ;  at  any  rate,  there  is  something  at  first 
sight  peculiarly  revolting  in  the  1 5th  verse.  "  The  man  ivent  and  told  the 
Jewish  authorities  that  it  was  Jesus  who  had  made  him  whole."  It  is 
barely  possible,  though  most  unlikely,  that  he  may  have  meant  to  mag- 
nify the  name  of  One  who  had  wrought  such  a  mighty  work ;  but  as  he 
must  have  been  well  aware  of  the  angry  feelings  of  the  Jews — as  we  hear 
no  word  of  his  gratitude  or  devotion,  no  word  of  amazement  or  glorify- 
ing God — as,  too,  it  must  have  been  abundantly  clear  to  him  that  Jesus 
in  working  the  miracle  had  been  touched  by  compassion  only,  and  had 
been  anxious  to  shun  all  publicity — it  must  be  confessed  that  the  prima 
facie  view  of  the  man's  conduct  is  that  it  was  an  act  of  needless  and 
contemptible  delation — a  piece  of  most  pitiful  self-protection  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  benefactor— an  almost  inconceivable  compound  of  feeble 
sycophancy  and  base  ingratitude.  Apparently  the  warning  of  Jesus 
had  been  most  deeply  necessary,  as,  if  we  judge  the  man  aright,  it  was 
wholly  unavailing. 

For  the  consequences  were  immediate  and  disastrous.  They  changed 
in  fact  the  entire  tenor  of  His  remaining  life.  Untouched  by  the  evi- 
dence of  a  most  tender  compassion,  unmoved  by  the  display  of  mirac- 
ulous   power,  the  Jewish    inquisitors   were    up    in    arms    to    defend    their 

1  Such,  as  we  have  already  observed,  is  all  but  invariably  the  meaning  of  "  the  Jews  "  in  St.  John. 

2  Alford  speaks  here  of  "the  sin  committed  thirty-eight  years  ago,  from  which  this  sicknesi  lad  re. 
salted  ; ''  but  surely  it  means  more  than  this  :  it  means,  '   Be  sinning — be  a  sinner — no  longer." 


THE  MIRACLE  AT  BETHESDA.  269 

favorite  piece  of  legalism.  "  They  began  to  persecute  Jesus  because  He 
did  such  things  on  the  Sabbath  day." 

And  it  was  in  answer  to  this  charge  that  He  delivered  the  divine 
and  lofty  discourse  preserved  for  us  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  St.  John. 
Whether  it  was  delivered  in  the  Temple,  or  before  some  committee  of 
the  Sanhedrin,  we  cannot  tell ;  but,  at  any  rate,  the  great  Rabbis  and 
Chief  Priests  who  summoned  Him  before  them  that  they  might  rebuke 
and  punish  Him  for  a  breach  of  the  Sabbath,  were  amazed  and  awed, 
if  also  they  were  bitterly  and  implacably  infuriated,  by  the  words  they 
heard.  They  had  brought  Him  before  them  in  order  to  warn,  and  the 
warnings  fell  on  them.  They  had  wished  to  instruct  and  reprove,  and 
then,  perhaps,  condescendingly,  for  this  once,  to  pardon ;  and,  lo !  He 
mingles  for  thetn  the  majesty  of  instruction  with  the  severity  of  compas- 
sionate rebuke.  They  sat  round  Him  in  all  the  pomposities  of  their 
office,  to  overawe  Him  as  an  inferior,  and,  lo !  they  tremble,  and  gnash 
their  teeth,  though  they  dare  not  act,  while  with  words  like  a  flame  of 
fire  piercing  into  the  very  joints  and  marrow — with  words  more  full  of 
wisdom  and  majesty  than  those  which  came  among  the  thunders  of 
Sinai — He  assumes  the  awful  dignity  of  the  Son  of  God. 

And  so  the  attempt  to  impress  on  Him  their  petty  rules  and  literal 
pietisms — to  lecture  Him  on  the  heinousness  of  working  miraculous  cures 
on  the  Sabbath  day — perhaps  to  punish  Him  for  the  enormity  of  bidding 
a  healed  man  take  up  his  bed — was  a  total  failure.  With  His  very 
first  word  He  exposes  their  materialism  and  ignorance.  They,  in  their 
feebleness,  had  thought  of  the  Sabbath  as  though  God  ceased  from 
working  thereon  because  He  was  fatigued  ;  He  tells  them  that  that  holy 
rest  was  a  beneficent  activity.  They  thought  apparently,  as  men  think 
now,  that  God  had  resigned  to  certain  mute  forces  His  creative  energy; 
He  tells  them  that  His  Father  is  working  still;  and  He,  knowing  His 
Father,  and  loved  of  Him,  was  working  with  Him,  and  should  do  greater 
works  than  these  which  He  had  now  done.  Already  was  He  quickening 
the  spiritually  dead,  and  the  day  should  come  when  all  in  the  tombs 
should  hear  His  voice.  Already  He  was  bestowing  eternal  life  on  all 
that  believed  on  Him;  hereafter  should  His  voice  be  heard  in  that  final 
judgment  of  the  quick  and  dead  which  the  Father  had  committed  into 
His  hands. 

Was  He  merely  bearing  witness  of  Himself?  Nay,  there  were  three 
mighty  witnesses  which  had  testified,  and  were  testifying,  of  Him — John, 


2  70  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

whom,  after  a  brief  admiration,  they  had  rejected ;  Moses,  whom  they 
boasted  of  following,  and  did  not  understand  ;  God  Himself,  whom  they 
professed  to  worship,  but  had  never  seen  or  known.  They  themselves 
had  sent  to  John  and  heard  his  testimony ;  but  He  needed  not  the 
testimony  of  man,  and  mentioned  it  only  for  their  sakes,  because  even 
they  for  a  time  had  been  willing  to  exult  in  that  great  prophet's  God- 
enkindled  light.'  But  He  had  far  loftier  witness  than  that  of  John — the 
witness  of  a  miraculous  power,  exerted  not  as  prophets  had  exerted  it, 
in  the  name  of  God,  but  in  His  own  narne,  because  His  Father  had 
given  such  powder  into  His  hand.  That  Father  they  knew  not:  His 
light  they  had  abandoned  for  the  darkness;  His  word  for  their  own 
falsehoods  and  ignorances ;  and  they  were  rejecting  Him  whom  He  had 
sent.  But  there  was  a  third  testimony.  If  they  knew  nothing  of  the 
Father,  they  at  least  knew,  or  thought  they  knew,  the  Scriptures;  the 
Scriptures  were  in  their  hands ;  they  had  counted  the  very  letters  of 
them;  yet  they  were  rejecting  Him  of  whom  the  Scriptures  testified. 
Was  it  not  clear  that  they — the  righteous,  the  pious,  the  scrupulous,  the 
separatists,  the  priests,  the  religious  leaders  of  their  nation — yet  had  not 
the  love  of  God  in  them,  if  they  thus  rejected  His  prophet,  His  word. 
His  works.   His  Son  ? 

And  what  was  the  fiber  of  bitterness  within  them  which  produced 
all  this  bitter  fruit?  Was  it  not  pride?  How  could  they  believe,  who 
sought  honor  of  one  another,  and  not  the  honor  that  cometh  from  the 
only  God?"  Hence  it  was  that  they  rejected  One  who  came  in  His 
Father's  name,  while  they  had  been,  and  should  be,  the  ready  dupes  and 
the  miserable  victims  of  every  false  Messiah,  of  every  Judas,  and 
Theudas,  and  Bar-Cochebas — and,  in  Jewish  history,  there  were  more 
than  sixty  such — who  came  in  his  own  name. 

And  yet  He  would  not  accuse  them  to  the  Father ;  they  had  another 
accuser,  even  Moses,  in  whom  they  trusted.  Yes,  Moses,  in  whose  lightest 
word  they  professed  to  trust — over  the  most  trivial  precept  of  whose  law 
they  had  piled  their  mountain  loads  of  tradition  and  commentary — even 
him  they  were  disbelieving  and  disobeying.  Had  they  believed  Moses, 
they  would  have  believed  Him  who   spoke  to    them,  for  Moses  wrote  of 

1  John  V.  35  (c{.  Matt.  v.  15  ;  Luke  xii.  35).  He  was  the  Lamp,  not  the  Light — being  ejtkindled  by 
Attothtr,  and  so  shining.  "  He  is  only  as  the  light  of  the  candle,  for  whose  rays,  indeed,  men  are  grateful  ; 
but  which  is  pale,  flickering,  transitory,  compared  with  the  glories  of  the  Eternal  flame  from  which  itself 
is  kindled"  (Lightfoot).  Christ  is  the  Light  from  whom  all  lamps  are  kindled.  Their  "exultation" 
in  the  Baptist's   teaching  had  been  very  shallow — "  they  heard,  but  did  not"  (Ezek.  xxxiii.  32). 

2  The  Greek  is  "  from  the  only  God" — not  "  from  God  only,"  as  in  the  Authorized  Version. 


THE  MIRACLE  AT  BETHESDA.  271 

Him ;  but  if  they  thus  rejected  the  true  meaning  of  the  written  words 
(ypocfxnaaiv^  which  they  professed  to  adore  and  love,  how  could  they 
believe  the  spoken  words  (Jtrjfxaaiv)  to  which  they  were  /istening  with 
rage  and  hate  ?' 

We  know  with  what  deadly  exasperation  these  high  utterances  were 
received.  Never  before  had  the  Christ  spoken  so  plainly.  It  seemed  as 
though  in  Galilee  He  had  wished  the  truth  respecting  Him  to  rise  like  a 
gradual  and  glorious  dawn  upon  the  souls  and  understandings  of  those 
who  heard  His  teaching  and  watched  His  works ;  but  as  though  at 
Jerusalem — where  His  ministry  was  briefer,  and  His  followers  fewer,  and 
His  opponents  stronger,  and  His  mighty  works  more  rare — He  had 
determined  to  leave  the  leaders  and  rulers  of  the  people  without 
excuse,  by  revealing  at  once  to  their  astonished  ears  the  nature  of 
His  being. 

More  distinctly  than  this  He  could  not  have  spoken.  They  had  sum- 
moned Him  before  them  to  explain  His  breach  of  the  Sabbath  ;  so  far 
from  excusing  the  act  itself,  as  He  sometimes  did  in  Galilee,  by  showing 
that  the  higher  and  moral  law  of  love  supersedes  and  annihilates  the 
lower  law  of  mere  literal  and  ceremonial  obedience — instead  of  showing 
that  He  had  but  acted  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  greatest  of  saints  had 
acted  before  Him,  and  the  greatest  of  prophets  taught — He  sets  Him- 
self wholly  above  the  Sabbath,  as  its  Lord,  nay,  even  as  the  Son  and 
Interpreter  of  Him  who  had  made  the  Sabbath,  and  who  in  all  the 
mighty  course  of  Nature  and  of  Providence  was  continuing  to  work 
thereon. 

Here,  then,  were  two  deadly  charges  ready  at  hand  against  this 
Prophet  of  Nazareth  :  He  was  a  breaker  of  their  Sabbath  ;  He  was  a 
blasphemer  of  their  God.  The  first  crime  was  sufficient  cause  for  oppo- 
sition and  persecution  ;  the  second,  an  ample  justification  of  persistent  and 
active  endeavors  to  bring  about  His  death. 

But  at  present  they  could  do  nothing  ;  they  could  only  rage  in  im- 
potent indignation ;  they  could  only  gnash  with  their  teeth,  and  melt 
away.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  as  yet  they  dared  not  act. 
A  power  greater  than  their  own  restrained  them.  The  hour  of  their 
triumph  was    not    yet    come ;    only,  from    this    moment,  there  went    forth 

I  "  The  Law,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  was  our  tutor  to  lead  us  unto  Christ,"  i.e.,  into  spiritual  manhood  ; 
into  the  maturity  of  the  Christian  life.  (Dr.  Lightfoot,  on  Gal.  iii.  24,  shows  that  the  ordinary  explanation 
of  this  text — however  beautiful — is  untenable.)  Cf.  John  i.  46,  "  We  have  found  Him  of  whom  Afoses  in  tht 
J.nw  and  the  Prophets  did  write." 


272  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORV. 

against  Him  from  the  hearts  of   those  Priests  and  Rabbis  and  Pharisees 
the  inexorable,  irrevocable  sentence  of  violent  death. 

And  under  such  circumstances  it  was  useless,  and  worse  than  use- 
less, for  Him  to  remain  in  Judea,  where  every  day  was  a  day  of  peril 
from  these  angry  and  powerful  conspirators.  He  could  no  longer  remain 
in  Jerusalem  for  the  approaching  Passover,  but  must  return  to  Galilee ; 
but  He  returned  with  a  clear  vision  of  the  fatal  end,  with  full  knowledge 
that  the  hours  of  light  in  which  He  could  still  work  were  already  fading 
into  the  dusk,  and  that  the  rest  of  His  work  would  be  accomplished  with 
the  secret  sense  that  death  was  hanging  over  His  devoted  head. 


BEHEADING   JOHN    THE    BAPTIST. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 


THE    MURDER    OF    JOHN    THE    BAPTIST. 


•r-g)©^ 


It  is  great  sin  to  swear  unto  a  sin; 
But  greater  sin  to  keep  a  sinful  oath. 
Who  can  be  bound  by  any  solemn  vow 
To  do  a  murderous  deed  .  .  .  ?  " 

— Shakespeare,  2  Htnry  VI.  v.  2. 


T  MUST    have  been  with  His  human  heart  full  of 
foreboding  sadness  that  the  Saviour  returned  to 
Galilee.     In   His  own  obscure  Nazareth  He  had 
before    been    violently    rejected ;     He    had    now 
been  rejected  no  less  decisively  at  Jerusalem  by 
the  leading  authorities  of  His  own  nation.      He 
was    returning    to    an    atmosphere   already  dark- 
ened by  the    storm-clouds    of   gathering    opposi- 
tion ;    and  He  had  scarcely  returned  when  upon 
that  atmosphere,  like  the  first    note  of  a  death- 
knell  tolling  ruin,  there  broke  the  intelligence  of  a  dreadful 
martyrdom.       The    heaven-enkindled    and  shining  lamp  had 
suddenly  been  quenched  in  blood.     The  great  Forerunner — 
he   who    was  greatest  of  those  born  of  women — the  Prophet, 
and  more   than  a  prophet,  had  been  foully  murdered. 

Herod  Antipas,  to  whom,  on  the  death  of  Herod  the  Great,  had 
fallen  the  tetrarchy  of  Galilee,  wa's  about  as  weak  and  miserable  a  prince 
as  evef  disgraced  the  throne  of  an  afflicted  country.  Cruel,  crafty,  and 
voluptuous,  like  his  father,  he  was  also,  unlike  him,  weak  in  war  and 
vacillating  in  peace.  In  him,  as  in  so  many  characters  which  stand  con- 
spicuous on  the  stage  of  history,  infidelity  and  superstition  went  hand  in 
hand.  But  the  morbid  terrors  of  a  guilty  conscience  did  not  save  him 
from  the  criminal  extravagances  of  a  violent  will.  He  was  a  man  in 
whom  were  mingled  the  worst  features  of  the  Roman,  the  Oriental,  and 
the  Greek. 

It  was  the  policy  of  the  numerous  princelings  who  owed  their  very 
existence  to  Roman  intervention,  to    pay  frequent  visits    of    ceremony  to 

18  173 


274  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  Emperor  at  Rome.  During  one  of  these  visits,  possibly  to  condole 
with  Tiberius  on  the  death  of  his  son  Drusus,  or  his  mother  Livia, 
Antipas  had  been,  while  at  Rome,  the  guest  of  his  brother  Herod  Philip 
— not  the  tetrarch  of  that  name,  but  a  son  of  Herod  the  Great  and 
Mariamne,  daughter  of  Simon  the  Boethusian,  who,  having  been  disin- 
herited by  his  father,  was  living  at  Rome  as  a  private  person.'  Here  he 
became  entangled  by  the  snares  of  Herodias,  his  brother  Philip's  wife  ; 
and  he  repaid  the  hospitality  he  had  received  by  carrying  her  off. 
Everything  combined  to  make  the  act  as  detestable  as  it  was  ungrateful 
and  treacherous.  The  Herods  carried  intermarriage  to  an  extent  which 
only  prevailed  in  the  worst  and  most  dissolute  of  the  Oriental  and  post- 
Macedonian  dynasties.  Herodias,  being  the  daughter  of  Aristobulus,  was 
not  only  the  sister-in-law,  but  also  the  neice  of  Antipas  ;'  she  had  already 
borne  to  her  husband  a  daughter,  who  was  now  grown  up.  Antipas  had 
himself  long  been  married  to  the  daughter  of  Aretas,  or  Hdreth,  Emir 
of  Arabia,  and  neither  he  nor  Herodias  was  young  enough  to  plead  even 
the  poor  excuse  of  youthful  passion.  The  sole  temptation  on  his  side 
was  an  impotent  sensuality  ;  on  hers  an  extravagant  ambition.  She  pre- 
ferred a  marriage  doubly  adulterous  and  doubly  incestuous  to  a  life  spent 
with  the  only  Herod  who  could  not  boast  even  the  fraction  of  a  vice- 
regal throne.  Antipas  promised  on  his  return  from  Rome  to  make  her 
his  wife,  and  she  exacted  from  him  a  pledge  that  he  would  divorce  his 
innocent  consort,  the  daughter  of  the  Arabian  prince. 

But  "our  pleasant  vices,"  it  has  well  been  said,  "are  made  the  in- 
struments to  punish  us;"  and  from  this  moment  began  for  Herod  Anti- 
pas a  series  of  annoyances  and  misfortunes,  which  only  culminated  in  his 
death  years  afterwards  in  discrowned  royalty  and  unpitied  exile.  Hero- 
dias became  from  the  first  the  evil  genius  of  his  house.  The  people  were 
scandalized  and  outraged.  Family  dissensions  were  embittered.  The 
Arabian  princess,  without  waiting  to  be  divorced,  indignantly  fled,  first  to 
the  border  castle  of  Machaerus,  and    then    to    the  rocky  fastnesses  of  her 

I  A  small  fragment  of  the  Stemma  Herodum  will  make  these  relationships  more  clear. 

Herod  the  Great. 


—  Mariamne,                                 —Malthace                                 =  Cleopatra.  -  Mariamne, 

d.  of  Simon,                               (a  Samariun).                                           I  d.  of  Hyrcanus. 

I                                      I Philip,  I 

Herod  "Philip"                      i                                I                    Tetr.  of  Ituraa.  Aristobulus. 

-=■  Herodias.  Herod  Antipas,  Archelaus.  =  Salome.  \__ 

I                           ■=  d.  of  Aretas.                                                                           I  ~~       TT    1 .         _ 

Salome.                     =  Herodias.                                                                       Herodias.  Herod  Agrippa  I. 

2  Even  the  Romans  regarded  such  unions  with  horror  ;  and   never  got   over  the   disgust  which  the 

Emperor  Claudius  caused  them  by  marrying  his  neice  Agrippina ;  but  they  were  almost  the  rule  in  the 

Herodian  family. 


THE  MURDER  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.     «  275 

father  Hareth  at  Petra.  He,  in  his  just  indignation,  broke  off  all  amica- 
ble relations  with  his  quondam  son-in-law,  and  subsequently  declared  war 
against  him,  in  which  he  avenged  himself  by  the  infliction  of  a  severe 
and  ruinous  defeat. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Sin  was  punished  with  sin,  and  the  adulterous 
union  had  to  be  cemented  with  a  prophet's  blood.  In  the  gay  and  gilded 
halls  of  any  one  of  those  sumptuous  palaces  which  the  Herods  delighted 
to  build,  the  dissolute  tyrant  may  have  succeeded  perhaps  in  shutting 
out  the  deep  murmur  of  his  subjects'  indignation  ;  but  there  was  one 
voice  which  reached  him,  and  agitated  his  conscience,  and  would  not  be 
silenced.  It  was  the  voice  of  the  great  Baptist.  How  Herod  had  been 
thrown  first  into  connection  with  him  we  do  not  know,  but  it  was  prob- 
ably after  he  had  seized  possession  of  his  person  on  the  political  plea 
that  his  teaching,  and  the  crowds  who  flocked  to  him,  tended  to  en- 
danger the  public  safety."  Among  other  features  in  the  character  of 
Herod  was  a  certain  superstitious  curiosity  which  led  him  to  hanker  after 
and  tamper  with  the  truths  of  the  religion  which  his  daily  life  so  flag- 
rantly violated.  He  summoned  John  to  his  presence.  Like  a  new  Elijah 
before  another  Ahab — clothed  in  his  desert  raiment,  the  hairy  cloak  and 
the  leathern  girdle — the  stern  and  noble  eremite  stood  fearless  before  the 
incestuous  king.  His  words — the  simple  words  of  truth  and  justice — the 
calm  reasonings  about  righteousness,  temperance,  and  the  judgment  to 
come — fell  like  flakes  of  fire  on  that  hard  and  icy  conscience.  Herod, 
alarmed  perhaps  by  the  fulfillment  of  the  old  curse  of  the  Mosaic  law  in 
the  childlessness  of  his  union,"  listened  with  some  dim  and  feeble  hope  of 
future  amendment.  He  even  did  many  things  gladly  because  of  John. 
But  there  was  one  thing  which  he  zvould  not  do — perhaps  persuaded  him- 
self that  he  could  not  do — and  that  was,  give  up  the  guilty  love  which 
mastered  him,  or  dismiss  the  haughty  imperious  woman  who  ruled  his 
life  after  ruining  his  peace.  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  have  thy 
brother's  wife"  was  the  blunt  declaration  of  the  dauntless  Prophet;  and 
though  time  after  time  he  might  be  led  over  those  splendid  floors,  pale 
and  wasted  with  imprisonment  and  disappointed  hope,  yet,  though  he  well 
knew  that  it  kindled  against  him  an  implacable  enmity,  and  doomed  him 
to  a  fresh  remand  to  his  solitary  cell,  he  never  hesitated  to  face  the 
flushed  and    angry  Herod  with    that  great  Non  licet.      Nor   did  he  spare 

1  So  Josephus,  Antt.  xviii.  5,  §  2.     In   this  way  it  is  easy  to   reconcile   his  account  with  those  of  the 
Evangelists. 

2  Lev.  XX.  21.     We  know  how  the  same  fact  weighed  on  the  mind  of  Henry  VIII. 


276  •  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

his  stern  judgment  on  all  the  other  crimes  and  follies  of  Herod's  life.' 
Other  men — even  men  otherwise  great  and  good — have  had  very  smooth 
words  for  the  sins  of  princes ;  but  in  the  fiery  soul  of  the  Baptist, 
strengthened  into  noblest  exercise  by  the  long  asceticism  of  the  wilder- 
ness, there  was  no  dread  of  human  royalty  and  no  compromise  with  ex- 
alted sin.  And  when  courage  and  holiness  and  purity  thus  stood  to 
rebuke  the  lustful  meanness  of  a  servile  and  corrupted  soul,  can  we 
wonder  if  even  among  his  glittering  courtiers  and  reckless  men-at-arms 
the  king  cowered  conscience-stricken  before  the  fettered  prisoner?'  But 
John  knew  how  little  trust  can  be  placed  in  a  soul  that  has  been  eaten 
away  by  a  besetting  sin;  and  since  He  to  whom  he  had  borne  witness 
beyond  Jordan  wrought  no  miracle  of  power  for  his  deliverance,  it  is  not 
probable  that  he  looked  for  any  passage  out  of  his  dungeon  in  the  Black 
Fortress,'  save  through  the  grave  and  gate  of  death. 

Hitherto,  indeed,  the  timidity  or  the  scruples  of  Herod  Antipas  had 
afforded  to  John — so  far  as  his  mere  life  was  concerned — a  precarious  pro- 
tection from  the  concentrated  venom  of  an  adulteress'  hate.  But  at 
last  what  she  had  failed  to  gain  by  passionate  influence  she  succeeded 
in  gaining  by  subtle  fraud.  She  knew  well  that  even  from  his  prison 
the  voice  of  John  might  be  more  powerful  than  all  the  influences  of  her 
fading  beauty,  and  might  succeed  at  last  in  tearing  from  her  forehead 
that  guilty  crown.  But  she  watched  her  opportunity,  and  was  not  long 
in  gaining  her  end.* 

The  Herodian  princes,  imitating  the  luxurious  example  of  their  great 
prototypes,  the  Roman  emperors,  were  fond  of  magnificent  banquets  and 
splendid  anniversaries.  Among  others  they  had  adopted  the  fashion  of 
birthday  celebrations.^  and  Antipas  on  his  birthday — apparently  either  at 
Machaerus  or  at  a  neighboring  palace  called  Julias — prepared  a  banquet 
for  his  courtiers,  and  generals,  and  Galilean  nobles.  The  wealth  of  the 
Herods,  the  expensive  architecture  of  their  numerous  palaces,  their  uni- 
versal tendency  to  extravagant  display,  make  it  certain  that  nothing 
would    be    wanting    to    such    a    banquet    which    wealth    or  royalty  could 

1  Luke  iii.  ig. 

2  History  has  not  seldom  seen  similar  scenes  repeated.  Compare  the  instances  of  Theodosius  and  St. 
Ambrose,  of  Attila  and  Leo,  of  Thierry  and  St.  Coluraban,  of  Henry  H.  and  St.  Thomas  i  Becket,  of 
Henry  IV.  of  Germany  and  Gregory  VIL,  &c. 

3  So  the  Rabbis  called  Machserus.     (Sepp.) 

4  The  "  when  the  favorable  day  occurred,"  of  Mark  vi.  2i  refers  to  the  prearranged  machinations  of 
this  Herodian  Jezebel. 

5  Gen.  xl.  20. 


THE  MURDER  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.  277 

procure ;  and  there  is  enough  to  show  that  it  was  on  the  model  of   those 

"  Sumptuous  gluttonies  and  gorgeous  feasts 
On  citron  table  or  Atlantic  stone," 

which  accorded  with  the  depraved  fashion  of  the  Empire,  and  mingled 
Roman  gourntandize  with  Ionic  sensuality.  But  Herodias  had  craftily 
provided  the  king  with  an  unexpected  and  exciting  pleasure,  the  spectacle 
of  which  would  be  sure  to  enrapture  such  guests  as  his.  Dancers  and 
dancing-women  were  at  that  time  in  great  request.  The  passion  for 
witnessing  these  too  often  indecent  and  degrading  representations  had 
naturally  made  its  way  into  the  Sadducean  and  semi-pagan  court  of  these 
usurping  Edomites,  and  Herod  the  Great  had  built  in  his  palace  a 
theater  for  the  Thymelici.  A  luxurious  feast  of  the  period  was  not 
regarded  as  complete  unless  it  closed  with  some  gross  pantominic  repre- 
sentation ;  and  doubtless  Herod  had  adopted  the  evil  fashion  of  his  day. 
But  he  had  not  anticipated  for  his  guests  the  rare  luxury  of  seeing  a 
princess — his  own  niece,  a  dranddaughter  of  Herod  the  Great,  and  of 
Mariamne,  a  descendant,  therefore,  of  Simon  the  High  Priest,  and  the 
great  line  of  Maccabean  princes — a  princess  who  afterwards  became  the 
wife  of  a  tetrarch,  and  the  mother  of  a  king' — honoring  them  by  degrad- 
ing herself  into  a  scenic  dancer.  And  yet  when  the  banquet  was  over, 
when  the  guests  were  full  of  meat  and  flushed  with  wine,  Salome  her- 
self, the  daughter  of  Herodias,  then  in  the  prime  of  her  young  and 
lustrous  beauty,  executed,  as  it  would  now  be  expressed,  a  pas  seul  "  in 
the  midst  of"'  those  dissolute  and  half-intoxicated  revelers.  "She  came 
in  and  danced,  and  pleased  Herod,  and  them  that  sat  at  meat  with  him." 
And  he,  like  another  Xerxes, '  in  the  delirium  of  his  drunken  approval, 
swore  to  this  degraded  girl,  in  the  presence  of  his  guests,  that  he  would 
give  her  anything  for  which  she  asked,  even  to  the  half  of  his  kingdom.'* 
The  girl  flew  to  her  mother,  and  said,  "What  shall  I  ask?"  It  was 
exactly  what  Herodias  expected,  and  she  might  have  asked  for  robes,  or 
jewels,  or  palaces,  or  whatever  such  a  woman  loves ;  but  to  a  mind  like 
hers  revenge  was  sweeter  than  wealth  or  pride,  and  we  may  imagine  with 
what  fierce  malice  she  hissed  out  the  unhesitating  answer,  "  The  head  of 

1  She  first  married  her  uncle  Philip,  tetrarch  of  Ituraea,  then   her  cousin  Aristobulus,  King  of  Chalcis, 
by  whom  she  became  mother  of  three  sons.     The  Herodian  princesses  were  famed  for  their  beauty. 

2  Matt.  xiv.  6. 

3  Esth.  V.  3  ;  Herod,  ix.  109.     Cf.  Suet.  Caius,  32. 

4  There  is  a  remarkable  parallel  to  the  narrative  in  the  superb  banquet  given  by  Agrippa  I.  to  the 
Emperor  Caius,  with  the  design  of  winning  a  favor. 


278  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

John  the  Baptizer."  And  coming  in  before  the  king  immedialdy  ivith  haste — • 
(what  a  touch  is  that !  and  how  apt  a  pupil  did  the  wicked  mother  find 
in  her  wicked  daughter  !) — Salome  exclaimed,  "  My  wish  is  that  you  give 
me  here, '  immediately,  on  a  dish,  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist."  Her 
indecent  haste,  her  hideous  petition,  show  that  she  shared  the  furies  of 
her  race.  Did  she  think  that  in  that  infamous  period,  and  among  those 
infamous  guests,  her  petition  would  be  received  with  a  burst  of  laughter? 
Did  she  hope  to  kindle  their  merriment  to  a  still  higher  pitch  by  the  sense 
of  the  delightful  wickedness^  involved  in  a  young  and  beautiful  girl 
asking — nay,  imperiously  demanding — that  then  and  there,  on  one  of  the 
golden  dishes  which  graced  the  board,  should  be  given  into  her  own 
hands  the  gory  head  of  the  Prophet  whose  words  had  made  a  thousand 
bold  hearts  quail  ? 

If  so,  she  was  disappointed.  The  tetrarch,  at  any  rate,  was  plunged 
into  grief  by  her  request ; '  it  more  than  did  away  with  the  pleasure  of 
her  disgraceful  dance  ;  it  was  a  bitter  termination  of  his  birthday  feast. 
Fear,  policy,  remorse,  superstition,  even  whatever  poor  spark  of  better 
feeling  remained  unquenched  under  the  dense  white  ashes  of  a  heart  con- 
sumed by  evil  passions,  all  made  him  shrink  in  disgust  from  this  sudden 
execution.  He  must  have  felt  that  he  had  been  duped  out  of  his  own 
will  by  the  cunning  stratagem  of  his  unrelenting  paramour.  If  a  single 
touch  of  manliness  had  been  left  in  him  he  would  have  repudiated  the 
request  as  one  which  did  not  fall  either  under  the  letter  or  the  spirit 
of  his  oath,  since  the  life  of  one  cannot  be  made  the  gift  to  another  ;  or 
he  would  have  declared  at  once,  that  if  such  was  her  choice,  his  oath  was 
more  honored  by  being  broken  than  by  being  kept.  But  a  despicable 
pride  and  fear  of  man  prevailed  over  his  better  impulses.  More  afraid 
of  the  criticisms  of  his  guests  than  of  the  future  torment  of  such  conscience 
as  was  left  him,  he  immediately  sent  an  executioner  to  the  prison,  and  so 
at  the  bidding  of  a  dissolute  coward,  and  to  please  the  loathly  fancies  of 
a  shameless  girl,  the  ax  fell,  and  the  head  of  the  noblest  of  the  prophets 
was  shorn  away. 

In  darkness  and  in  secrecy  the  scene  was  enacted,  and  if  any  saw  it 
their  lips  were  sealed  ;    but  the  executioner  emerged  into  the  light  carrying 

1  Matt.  xiv.  8;  Mark  vi.  25.      We  might  suppose  that  some  scorn  was  intended  by  "the  man  who 
baptizes,"  in  verse  24,  were  it  not  that  this  seems  to  be  the  general  form  in  St.  Mark  (i.  4;  vi.  14). 

2  Volkmar  thinks  that  she  was  a  mere  child,  the  unconscious  instrument  in  her  mother's  hands;  and 
that  "immediately,  with  haste,"  of  Mark  vi.  25  implies  mere  ignorant  girlish  glee. 

3  St.  Mark  (vi.  26)  uses  the  strong  expression,  "  plunged  in  sudden  grief." 


THE  MURDER  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.  279 

by  the  hair  that  noble  head,  and  then  and  there,  in  all  the  pallor  of 
recent  death,  it  was  placed  upon  a  dish  from  the  royal  table.  The 
young  dancing-girl  received  it,'  and  now  frightful  as  a  Mega;ra,  carried 
the  hideous  burden  to  her  mother.  Let  us  hope  that  the  av^ful  spectacle 
haunted  the  souls  of  both  thenceforth  till  death. 

What  became  of  that  ghastly  relic  we  do  not  know.  Tradition  tells 
us  that  Herodias  ordered  the  headless  trunk  ^  to  be  flung  out  over  the 
battlements  for  dogs  and  vultures  to  devour.  On  her,  at  any  rate,  swift 
vengeance  fell. 

The  disciples  of  John— perhaps  Manaen  the  Essene,^  the  foster- 
brother  of  Herod  Antipas,  may  have  been  among  them— took  up  the 
corpse,  and  buried  it.  Their  next  care  was  to  go  and  tell  Jesus,  some 
of  them,  it  may  be,  with  sore  and  bitter  hearts,  that  His  friend  and 
Forerunner— the  first  who  had  borne  witness  to  Him,  and  over  whom 
He  had  Himself  pronounced  so  great  an  eulogy — was  dead. 

And  about  the  same  time  His  Apostles  also  returned  from  their 
mission,  and  told  Him  all  that  they  had  done  and  taught.  They 
had  preached  repentance  ;  they  had  cast  out  devils ;  "^  they  had 
annointed  the  sick  with  oil,  and  healed  them.  ^  But  the  record  of  their 
ministry  is  very  brief,  and  not  very  joyous.  In  spite  of  partial  successes, 
it  seemed  as  if  their  untried  faith  had  as  yet  proved  inadequate  for  the 
high  task  imposed  on  them. 

And  very  shortly  afterwards  another  piece  of  intelligence  reached 
Jesus  ;  it  was  that  the  murderous  tetrarch  was  inquring  about  Him ;  wished  to 
see  Him;  perhaps  would  send  and  demand  His  presence  when  he  re- 
turned to  his  new  palace,  the  Golden  House  of  his  new  capital  at  Ti- 
berias.    For  the  mission  of    the  Twelve    had    tended    more  than  ever  to 

I  This  bad  age  produced  more  than  one  parallel  to  such  awful  and  sanguinary  nonchalance  on  the  part 
of  women  nobly  born.  Fulvia  again  and  again  ran  a  golden  needle  through  the  tongue  of  Cicero's  dis- 
severed head  ;  and  Agrippina  similarly  outraged  the  head  of  her  rival,  Lojiia  Paulina.  It  is  sad  to  know 
that  decapitation  was  regarded  by  the  Jews  with  no  very  special  horror. 

_  2  "  Carcase  "  (Mark  vi.  29).  The  tradition  is  mentioned  by  St.  Jerome  and  Nicephorus.  For  the  tra- 
ditional death  of  "the  dancing  daughter  of  Herodias,"  by  falling  through  and  having  her  head  cut  off  by 
the  ice,  see  N.ceph.  ..  20.  He  reports  that  "  passing  over  a  frozen  lake,  the  ice  broke,  and  she  fell  up  to 
the  neck  in  water,  and  her  head  was  parted  from  her  body  by  the  violence  of  the  fragments  shaken  by 
the  water  and  her  own  fall,  and  so  perished.  God  having  fitted  a  judgment  to  the  analogy  and  represent- 
ment  of  her  sin.  But  history  loses  sight  of  Salome  in  the  court  of  her  second  husband.  Aristobuius,  and 
since  God  s  judgments  are  not  always  displayed  in  this  life,  she  may.  for  all  we  really  know,  have  died  like 
1-ucrezia  Borgia,  ui  the  odor  of  sanctity  at  her  little  court. 

3  Perhaps  this  Manaen  (see  Acts  xiii.  i)  was  a  son  of  the  Manaen  who  foretold  to  Herod  the  Great 
his  future  dignity. 

4  Of.  James  v.  14. 


2uO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

spread  a  rumor  of  Him  among  the  people,'  and  speculation  respecting 
Him  was  rife.  All  admitted  that  He  had  some  high  claim  to  attention. 
Some  thought  that  He  was  Elijah,  some  Jeremiah,  others  one  of  the 
Prophets  ;  but  Herod  had  the  most  singular  solution  of  the  problem. 
It  is  said  that  when  Theodoric  had  ordered  the  murder  of  Symmachus, 
he  was  haunted  and  finally  maddened  by  the  phantom  of  the  old  man's 
distorted  features  glaring  at  him  from  a  dish  on  the  table  ;  nor  can  it 
have  been  otherwise  with  Herod  Antipas.  Into  his  banquet  hall  had 
been  brought  the  head  of  one  whom,  in  the  depths  of  his  inmost  being, 
he  felt  to  have  been  holy  and  just;  and  he  had  seen,  with  the  solemn 
agony  of  death  still  resting  on  them,  the  stern  features  on  which  he  had 
often  gazed  with  awe.  Did  no  reproach  issue  from  those  dead  lips  yet 
louder  and  more  terrible  than  they  had  spoken  in  life  ?  were  the  accents 
which  had  uttered,  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  have  her,"  frozen  into 
silence,  or  did  they  seem  to  issue  with  supernatural  energy  from  the  mute 
ghastliness  of  death  ?  If  we  mistake  not,  that  dissevered  head  was  rarely 
thenceforth  absent  from  Herod's  haunted  imagination  from  that  day  for- 
ward till  he  lay  upon  his  dying  bed.  And  now,  when  but  a  brief  time 
afterwards,  he  heard  of  the  fame  of  another  Prophet — of  a  Prophet  tran- 
scendently  mightier,  and  one  who  wrought  miracles,  which  John  had  never 
done — his  guilty  conscience  shivered  with  superstitious  dread,  and  to  his 
intimates'  he  began  to  whisper  with  horror,  "  T/iz's  is  John  the  Baptist, 
whom  I  beheaded:  he  is  risen  from  the  dead,  and  therefore  these  mighty 
works  are  wrought  by  him."  ^  Had  John  sprung  to  life  again  thus  sud- 
denly to  inflict  a  signal  vengeance  ?  would  he  come  to  the  strong  towers  of 
Machaerus  at  the  head  of  a  multitude  in  wild  revolt  ?  or  glide  through 
the  gilded  halls  of  Tiberias,  terrible,  at  midnight,  with  ghostly  tread? 
"Hast  thou  found  me,  O  mine  enemy?" 

As  the  imperious  and  violent  temper  of  Herodias  was  the  constant 
scourge  of  her  husband's  peace,  so  her  mad  ambition  was  subsequently 
the  direct  cause  of  his  ruin.  When  the  Emperor  Caius  (Caligula)  began 
to  heap  favors  on  Herod  Agrippa  I.,  Herodias,  sick  with  envy  and  dis- 
content, urged  Antipas  to  sail  with  her  to  Rome,  and  procure  a  share  of, 
the    distinction  which    had    thus    been    given  to  her  brother.     Above  allj 

1  Mark  vi.  14. 

2  This  terrified  surmise  of  the  palace  may  have  been  mentioned  by  Chuza  or  Manaen. 

3  Matt.  xiv.  2  ;  Mark  vi.  16.  That  such  thoughts  must  have  been  very  rife  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
when  the  army  of  Herod  Antipas  was  disgracefully  routed  by  Aretas,  the  people  looked  on  it  as  a  retri- 
bution for  the  murder  of  John. 


JESUS    WALKING    ON    THE    WATER.— John  vi.   15. 


PETER    SAVED   BY   JESUS.— Matt.  xiv.  31. 


THE  MURDER  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST.  28 1 

she  was  anxious  that  her  husband  should  obtain  the  title  of  king,'  instead 
of  continuing  content  with  the  humbler  one  of  tetrarch.  In  vain  did  the 
timid  and  ease-loving  Antipas  point  out  to  her  the  danger  to  which  he 
might  be  exposed  by  such  a  request.  She  made  his  life  so  bitter  to  him 
by  her  importunity  that,  against  his  better  judgment,  he  was  forced  to 
yield.  The  event  justified  his  worst  misgivings.  No  love  reigned  be- 
tween the  numerous  uncles  and  nephews  and  half-brothers  in  the  tangled 
family  of  Herod,  and  either  out  of  policy  or  jealousy  Agrippa  not  only 
discountenanced  the  schemes  of  his  sister  and  uncle — though  they  had 
helped  him  in  his  own  misfortunes — but  actually  sent  his  freedman  Fortu- 
natus  to  Rome  to  accuse  Antipas  of  treasonable  designs.  The  tetrarch 
failed  to  clear  himself  of  the  charge,  and  in  A.D.  39  was  banished  to 
Lugdunum — probably  St.  Bertrand  de  Comminges,  in  Gaul,  not  far  from 
the  Spanish  frontier.^  Herodias,  either  from  choice  or  necessity  or  de- 
spair, accompanied  his  exile,  and  here  they  both  died  in  obscurity  and 
dishonor.  Salome,  the  dancer — the  Lucrezia  Borgia  of  the  Herodian 
house — disappears  henceforth  from  history.  Tradition  or  legend  alone  in- 
forms us  that  she  met  with  an  early,  violent,  and  hideous  death. 

1  He  is  called  "king"  in  Mark  vi.  14  (and  the  courtesy  title  was  common  enough  in  the  provinces), 
but  "tetrarch"  more  accurately  in  Matt.  xiv.  i  ;  Luke  ix.  7. 

2  "  Thus,"  says  Josephus,  "did  God  punish  Herodias  for  her  envy  at  her  brother,  and  Herod  for  lend- 
ing an  ear  to  empty  feminine  talk."  He  adds  that  when  Caius  learnt  that  Herodias  was  a  sister  of 
Agrippa,  he  would  have  shown  her  some  favor ;  but  the  passion  with  which  she  rejected  it  made  him 
banish  her  also. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 


FEEDING   OF    FIVE   THOUSAND — WALKING   ON    THE    SEA. 


"Thy  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  Thy   path   in  the  great  waters,  and  Thy  footsteps  are  not  known." 

3_  eOi  •-"•  '-r^  — Ps.  Ixxvii.  lo. 

HE    feeding    of     the     Five    Thousand     is     one    of 
the  few  miracles  during  the  ministry    of    Christ 
which  are    narrated    to    us    by    all    four    of    the 
Evangelists;'    and    as   it    is   placed  by  St.  John 
after   the  nameless    festival    and   just    before    a 
Passover,  and    by  the  Synoptists    in    immediate 
connection  with  the  return    of   the    Twelve  and 
the  execution  of  the  Baptist,  we  can  hardly  err 
in  introducing  it  at  this  point  of    our  narrative. 
The  novel  journeyings    of   the  Apostles,  the 
agitation    of    His    own  recent    conflicts,  the  bur- 
den of  that  dread  intelligence  which   had  just  reached   Him, 
the    constant    pressure    of    a    fluctuating    multitude    which 
absorbed    the   whole   of   their  time,  once   more   rendered  it 
necessary  that    the   little    company  should    recover  the  tone 
and    bloom    of    their    spirits    by    a    brief    period    of    rest    and     solitude. 

I  Matt.  xiv.  13 — 33  ;  Mark  vi.  30—52  ;  Luke  ix.  10 — 17  ;  John  vi.  I — 21.  The  reader  will  find  every 
incident  of  the  text  either  directly  stated  or  clearly  implied  in  one  or  other  of  these  quadruple  narratives. 
In  every  important  particular  they  show  the  most  absolute  unanimity  ;  the  trifling  divergences,  which  a 
captious  and  ungenerous  criticism  delights  to  exaggerate  into  glaring  discrepancies,  are  perfectly  reconcil- 
able without  any  violent  hypothesis,  and  are  all  more  or  less  accounted  for  in  the  story  as  here  given. 
"  The  notion  that  genuine  history  is  characterized  by  an  exact  and  minute  attention  to  details,"  says  a 
recent  writer,  "  is  wholly  modern.  It  may  be  doubted  whether,  since  no  narrative  can  give  all  particulars, 
this  method  of  historical  composition  does  not,  with  all  the  affectation  of  reality,  present  a  more  unreal 
presentation  of  the  past  than  the  artless  tale  of  an  interested  but  uncritical  observer — whether,  in  short, 
syncretic  history  is  not  apt  to  be  exceedingly  untrustworthy  or  deceptive.  The  more  accurately  two  per- 
sons relate  their  impressions  of  the  same  great  events,  the  wider  is  sure  to  be  the  discrepancy  between 
them.  No  two  men  see  facts  in  exactly  the  same  light,  or  direct  their  attention  to  exactly  the  same 
circumstances."  He  adds  that,  exact  and  patient  asThucydides  is,  we  should  have  possessed  two  widely 
differing  stories  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  if  another  observer  equally  critical  had  devoted  his  attention  to 
the  same  events.  These  slight  divergences  of  the  Gospels  serve,  however,  to  establish  in  the  most  satisfact- 
ory  manner  the  essential  independence  of  the  fourfold  testimonies.  They  may  tell  against  exaggerated, 
superstitious,  and  anti-scriptural  theories  of  inspiration  ;  but  they  are  demonstrably  compatible  with  the 
most  perfect  truthfulness  and  honesty. 


FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND-WALKING  ON  THE  SEA.  2S3 

awWle"    ^''    ^'°"'''''""''"    ""    ^^^^'     "^P^"-^    -^°    -  desert  place,  and  rest 

wh    ^'  ^^VT^"^''"'"    '°'"'''   °^   '^"    ^"^^'  ^  ^'"'^  beyond  the    point 
where  the  Jordan    enters    it,  was  a  second    Bethsaida,  or    "Fish-house"' 

anT'h       ri''.  r'Zl  "'""''"'  '    ^"^"    ^•"^^^'  b"^    --"^ly  enlarged 
and  beautified  by  Phihp,  tetrarch  of   Itur^a,  and  called,  for   the   sake  of 

distinction    Bethsaida    Julias.     The   second    name    had   been  given   it   in 

honor    of   Julia,  the    beautiful    but    infamous    daughter   of    the    Emperor 

Augustus.      These    half-heathen    Herodian    cities,    with     their    imitative 

Greek  architecture  and  adulatory  Roman   names,  seem   to   have    repelled 

rather  than  attracted  the  feet  of  Christ;   and  though  much  of  His   work 

was  accomplished  in  the  neighborhood  of  considerable  cities,  we  know  of 

no  city  except  Jerusalem  in  which  He   ever   taught.     But   to    the    south 

1 1     1     ^!^^  ^u        r'  '^"  ^'■''"  ""'^  "^'■'■^"  P'^'"  °f  El  Batihah,  which, 
like  the  hills  that  dose  it  round,  was  uninhabited  then  as  now.     Hither- 
ward  the  little  vessel  steered    its   course,  with    its    freight    of    weary  and 
saddened  hearts  which  sought  repose.     But  private  as  the  departure  had 
been,  it  had  not  passed  unobserved,  and   did    not    remain    unknown.^     It 
IS  but  SIX  miles  by  sea  from  Capernaum  to  the  retired  and  desolate  shore 
which  was  their  destination.     The  little  vessel,  evidently  retarded  by  un- 
favorable winds,  made  its  way  slowly  at  no  great  distance  trom  the  shore 
and  by  the  time  it  reached  its  destination,  the  object  which  their  Master's 
kindness  had  desired  for  His  Apostles  was  completely  frustrated.     Some 
of  the  multitude  had  already  outrun  the  vessel,  and  were  crowding  about 
the  landing-place  when  the  prow  touched  the  pebbly  shore;  while  in  the 
distance  were  seen  the  thronging  groups  of  Passover  pilgrims,  who  were 
attracted  out  of  their  course  by  the  increasing  celebrity  of  this  Unknown 
Frophet.3     Jesus  was    touched    with    compassion    for    them,  because   thev 
were  as  sheep  not  having  a  shepherd.     We  may  conjecture  from  St.  John 
hat  on  reaching  the  land  He  and  His  disciples  climbed  the  hill-side  and 
there  waited  a  short  time  till  the  whole  multitude  had  assembled.     Then 
descending  among  them  He  taught  them  many  things,  preaching  to  them 
ol  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  healing  their  sick.* 

1  The  same  root  is  found  in  the  name  SiJon. 

2  Mark  vi.  33  ;  Luke  ix.  11  ;  Matt.  xiv.  13. 

3  Mark  vi.  33  ;  John  vi.  2,  4. 

'^^^^^^^:^:f^:^:;.Tj:^^Z-^^:^^-^  -'^  ^""  °^  — .;  it  tenso^a  ..at 

fidelity  endured  by  the  Twelve."  ^  '     ^'''"  ^P°stacy,  and  great  trial  of  faith  and 


284  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

The  day  wore  on  ;  already  the  sun  was  sinking  towards  the  western 
hills,  yet  still  the  multitude  lingered,  charmed  by  that  healing  voice  and 
by  those  holy  words.  The  evening  would  soon  come,  and  after 
the  brief  Oriental  twilight,  the  wandering  crowd,  who  in  their 
excitement  had  neglected  even  the  necessities  of  life,  would  find 
themselves  in  the  darkness,  hungry,  and  afar  from  every  human 
habitation.%  The  disciples  began  to  be  anxious  lest  the  day  should  end 
in  some  unhappy  catastrophe,  which  would  give  a  fresh  handle  to 
the  already  embittered  enemies  of  their  Lord.  But  His  compassion 
had  already  forestalled  their  considerate  anxiety,  and  had  suggested  the 
difficulty  to  the  mind  of  Philip.'  A  little  consultation  took  place.  To 
buy  even  a  mouthful  apiece  for  such  a  multitude  would  require  at  least 
two  hundred  denarii  (more  than  £-j)  ;  and  even  supposing  that  they  pos- 
sessed such  a  sum  in  their  common  purse,  there  was  'now  neither  time 
nor  opportunity  to  make  the  necessary  purchases.  Andrew  hereupon 
mentioned  that  there  was  a  little  boy  there  who  had  five  barley-loaves 
and  two  small  fishes,  but  he  only  said  it  in  a  despairing  way,  and,  as  it 
were,  to  show  the  utter  helplessness  of  the  only  suggestion  which  occurred 
to  him.' 

"  Make  the  men  sit  down,"  was  the  brief  reply. 

Wondering  and  expectant,  the  Apostles  bade  the  multitude  recline, 
as  for  a  meal,  on  the  rich  green  grass  which  in  that  pleasant  spring-time 
clothed  the  hill-sides.  They  arranged  them  in  companies  of  fifty  and  a 
hundred,  and  as  they  sat  in  these  orderly  groups  upon  the  grass,  the  gay 
red  and  blue  and  yellow  colors  of  the  clothing  which  the  poorest  Orien- 
tals wear,  called  up  in  the  imagination  of  St.  Peter  a  multitude  of  flower- 
beds in  some  well-cultivated  garden.^  And  then,  standing  in  the  midst 
of  His  guests — glad-hearted  at  the  work  of  mercy  which    he  intended  to 

1  Why  He  should  have  tested  the  faith  of  Philip  in  particular  is  not  mentioned  ;  it  is  simply  one  of 
the  unexplained  touches  which  always  occur  in  the  narratives  of  witnesses  familiar  with  their  subject. 
Prof.  Blunt,  in  his  interesting  Undesigned  Coincidences,  suggests  that  it  was  because  "  Philip  was  of  Beth- 
saida  ;"  this  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  for  Philip's  native  village  (now  Ain  et-Tabijah)  was  at  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  Lake.  Reland's  discovery,  that  there  were  two  Bethsaidas  (one  Bethsaida  Julias,  at  the 
north  end  of  the  Lake,  and  the  other  a  fishing  village  on  its  western  side)  solves  all  the  difficulties  of 
Luke  ix.  10  ;  Mark  vi.  45,  &c. 

2  If  this  "little  boy  "  (John  vi.  9),  was,  as  may  be  inferred  from  Mark  vi.  38,  in  attendance  upon  the 
Apostles,  it  is  very  likely  that  he  too,  like  Philip  and  Andrew,  was  a  native  of  the  western  Bethsaida  ;  and 
then  perhaps  our  Lord's  question  may  have  been  meant  to  see  whether  the  simple-hearted  Philip  had  faith 
enough  to  mention  this  possible  resource. 

3  "  They  reclined  in  parterres"  (areolatim),  is  the  picturesque  expression  of  St  Mark  (vi.  40),  who  here, 
as  throughout  his  Gospel,  doubtless  reflects  the  impressions  of  St.  Peter. 


FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND— WALKING  ON  THE  SEA.  285 

perform — Jesus  raised  His  eyes  to  heaven,  gave  thanks,'  blessed  the 
loaves,^  broke  them  into  pieces,  and  began  to  distribute  them'  to  His 
disciples,  and  they  to  the  multitude  ;  and  the  two  fishes  He  divided 
among  them  all.  It  was  a  humble  but  a  sufficient,  and  to  hungry 
wayfarers  a  delicious  meal.  And  when  all  were  abundantly  satisfied, 
Jesus,  not  only  to  show  His  disciples  the  extent  and  reality  of  what  had 
been  done,  but  also  to  teach  them  a  memorable  lesson  that  wastefulness, 
even  of  miraculous  power,  is  wholly  alien  to  the  Divine  economy,  bade 
them  grather  up  the  fragments  that  remained,  that  nothing  might  be  lost. 
The  symmetrical  arrangement  of  the  multitude  showed  that  about  five 
thousand  men,  besides  women  and  children,  had  been  fed,*  and  yet  twelve 
baskets'  were  filled  with  what  was  over  and  above  to  them  that  had 
eaten. 

The  miracle  produced  a  profound  impression.  It  was  exactly  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  current  expectation,  and  the  multitude  began  to  whisper 
to  each  other  that  this  must  undoubtedly  be  "that  Prophet  which 
should  come  into  the  world;"  the  Shiloh  of  Jacob's  blessing;  the  Star 
and  the  Scepter  of  Balaam's  vision ;  the  Prophet  like  unto  Moses  to 
whom  they  were  to  hearken  ;  perhaps  the  Elijah  promised  by  the  dying 
breath  of  ancient  prophecy;*  perhaps  the  Jeremiah  of  their  tradition, 
come  back  to  reveal  the  hiding-place  of  the  Ark,  and  the  Urim,  and  the 
sacred  fire.  Jesus  marked  their  undisguised  admiration,  and  the  danger 
that  their  enthusiasm  might  break  out  by  force,  and  precipitate  His 
death  by  open  rebellion  against  the  Roman  government  in  the  attempt 
to  make  Him  a  king.  He  saw  too  that  His  disciples  seemed  to  share 
this  worldly  and  perilous  excitement.     The  time  was  come,  therefore,  for 

1  John  vi.  II. 

2  Luke  ix.   l6. 

3  "  Brake  and  began  to  give  "  (Mark  vi.  41).  The  aorist  implies  the  instantaneous— the  imperfect,  the 
continuous  act.  The  fact  is  interesting,  as  giving  us  the  only  glimpse  permitted  us  of  the  mode  in  which 
the  miracle  was  wrought.  The  multiplication  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  evidently  took  place  in  the  hands  of 
Christ  between  the  acts  of  breaking  and  of  distributing  the  bread. 

4  Women  and  children  would  not  sit  down  with  the  men,  but  sit  or  stand  apart.  Probably  in  that 
lonely  and  distant  spot  their  numbers  would  not  be  great. 

5  It  has  been  repeatedly  noticed  that  all  the  Evangelists  alike  here  mention  the  common  wicker-baskets 
in  which  these  fragments  were  collected  ;  and  the  "rope-baskets,"  when  they  speak  of  the  feeding  of  the 
four  thousand.  If  any  one  thinks  it  important  to  ask  where  the  wicker-baskets  came  from,  the  answer  is 
that  they  were  the  very  commonest  possession  of  Jews,  who  constantly  used  them  to  prevent  their  food, 
&c.,  from  being  polluted.  Even  in  Palestine,  overrun  as  it  was  at  this  period  with  heathens,  such  a  pre- 
caution might  be  necessary. 

6  Gen.  xlix.  10;  Numb.  xxiv.  17  ;  Deut.  xviii.  15,  18  ;  Mai.  iv.  5.  I  adopt  the  current  Jewish  explan- 
ations. 


286  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

instant  action.  By  the  exercise  of  direct  authority,  He  compelled"  His 
disciples  to  embark  in  their  boat,  and  cross  the  lake  before  Him  in  the 
direction  of  Capernaum  or  the  western  Bethsaida.''  A  little  gentle  con- 
straint was  necessary,  for  they  were  naturally  unwilling  to  leave  Him 
among  the  excited  multitude  on  that  lonely  shore,  and  if  anything  great 
was  going  to  happen  to  Him  they  felt  a  right  to  be  present.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  more  easy  for  Him  to  dismiss  the  multitude  when 
they  had  seen  that  His  own  immediate  friends  and  disciples  had  been 
sent  away. 

So  in  the  gathering  dusk  He  gradually  and  gently  succeeded  in  per- 
suading the  multitude  to  leave  Him,^  and  when  all  but  the  most  en- 
thusiastic had  streamed  away  to  their  homes  or  caravans.  He  suddenly 
left  the  rest,  and  fled  from  them  *  to  the  hill-top  alone  to  pray.  He 
was  conscious  that  a  solemn  and  awful  crisis  of  His  day  on  earth  was 
come,  and  by  communing  with  His  Heavenly  Father,  He  would  nerve 
His  soul  for  the  stern  work  of  the  morrow,  and  the  bitter  conflict  of 
many  coming  weeks.  Once  before  He  had  spent  in  the  mountain  soli- 
tudes a  night  of  lonely  prayer,  but  then  it  was  before  the  choice  of  His 
beloved  Apostles,  and  the  glad  tidings  of  His  earliest  and  happiest 
ministry.  Far  different  were  the  feelings  with  which  the  Great  High 
Priest  now  climbed  the  rocky  stairs  of  that  great  mountain  altar  which 
in  His  temple  of  the  night  seemed  to  lift  Him  nearer  to  the  stars  of 
God.  The  murder  of  His  beloved  forerunner  brought  home  to  His 
soul  more  nearly  the  thought  of  death  ;  nor  was  He  deceived  by  this 
brief  blaze  of  a  falsely-founded  popularity,  which  on  the  next  day  He 
meant  to  quench.     The  storm  which  now  began  to  sweep  over  the  barren 

1  "  Forced"  (Matthew,  Mark).  How  unintelligible  would  this  word  be  but  for  the  fact  mentioned  by 
John  vi.  15  ;  how  clear  does  it  become  when  the  fact  there  mentioned  is  before  us  ;  and  again  how  imper- 
fect would  be  our  comprehension  of  what  took  place  if  we  had  the  narrative  of  John  alone. 

2  Compare  Mark  vi.  45  with  John  vi.  17.  Tell  Hdm  (Capernaum)  and  Bethsaida  (Ain  et-Tabijah)  are 
so  near  together  that  they  might  make  for  either  as  was  most  convenient,  and  indeed,  since  the  landing- 
place  at  Bethsaida  was  the  more  convenient  of  the  two,  it  might  be  considered  as  the  harbor  of  Caper- 
naum. On  the  other  hand,  the  hypothesis  of  Thomson  and  others  that  there  was  only  one  Bethsaida 
(viz.,  Julias)  falls  to  the  ground  if  we  compare  Mark  vi.  45  ("  unto  the  other  side,  towards  Bethsaida")  with 
Luke  ix.  10,  which  shows  that  they  were  already  at  Bethsaida  Julias— except,  indeed,  on  the  unlikely  and 
far-fetched  notion  that  their  plan  was  to  coast  along,  touch  at  Bethsaida  Julias,  there  take  up  our  Lord, 
and  then  proceed  to  the  other  Bethsaida. 

3  Mark  vi.  45,  "  begins  dismissing,"  contrasted  with  the  aorist  "  dismiss  at  once  "  in  verse  36. 

4  That  some  lingered,  we  infer  from  John  vi.  22.  I  have  adopted  the  reading,  "flies,"  in  John  vi.  15. 
instead  of  "  retired."  The  narrative  gives  the  impression  that  the  excitement  of  the  multitude,  and  the 
necessity  for  exertion  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  were  greater  than  is  fully  told.  But  even  the  received  reading 
involves  the  same  conception.     (Cf.  Matt.  ii.  12,  22.) 


FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND— WALKING  ON  THE  SEA.  287 

hills  ,  the  winds  that  rushed  howling  down  the  ravines  ;  the  lake  before 
Him  buffeted  into  tempestuous  foam  ;  the  litttle  boat  which — as  the 
moonlight  struggled  .through  the  rifted  clouds — He  saw  tossing  beneath 
Him  on  the  laboring  waves,  were  all  too  sure  an  emblem  of  the  altered 
aspects  of  His  earthly  life.  But  there  on  the  desolate  hill-top,  in  that 
night  of  storm,  He  could  gain  strength  and  peace  and  happiness  un- 
speakable; for  there  He  was  alone  with  God.  And  so  over  that  figure, 
bowed  in  lonely  prayer  upon  the  hills,  and  over  those  toilers  upon  the 
troubled  lake,  the  darkness  fell  and  the  great  winds  blew." 

Hour  after  hour  passed  by.  It  was  now  the  fourth  watch  of  the 
night  ;^  the  ship  had  traversed  but  half  of  its  destined  course;  it  was 
dark,  and  the  wind  was  contrary,  and  the  waves  boisterous,  and  they 
were  distressed  with  toiling  at  the  oar,^  and  above  all  there  was  no  one 
with  them  now  to  calm  and  save,  for  Jesus  was  alone  upon  the  land. 
Alone  upon  the  land,  and  they  were  tossing  on  the  perilous  sea ;  but  all 
the  while  He  saw  and  pitied  them,  and  at  last,  in  their  worst  extremity 
they  saw  a  gleam  in  the  darkness,  and  an  awful  figure,  and  a  fluttering 
robe,  and  One  drew  near  them,  treading  upon  the  ridges  of  the  sea,* 
but  seemed  as  if  He  meant  to  pass  them  by;  and  they  cried  out  in 
terror  at  the  sight,  thinking  that  it  was  a  phantom  =  that  walked  upon 
the  waves.  And  through  the  storm  and  darkness  to  them — as  so  often  to 
us,  when,  amid  the  , darkness  of  life,  the  ocean  seems  so  great,  and  our 
little  boats  so  small — there  thrilled  that  Voice  of  peace,  which  said,  "  It 
is  I  :  be  not  afraid." 

That  Voice  stilled  their  terrors,  and  at  once  they  were  eager  to  receive 
Him  into  the  ship;*  but  Peter's  impetuous  love — the  strong  yearning  of 
him  who,  in  his  despairing  self-consciousness,  had  cried  out,  "  Depart 
from  me!" — now  cannot  even  await  His  approach,  and  he  passionately 
exclaims — 

"  Lord,  if  it  be  Thou,  bid  me  come  unto  Thee  on  the  water." 

"Come." 

1  John  vi.  17,  18. 

2  Between  three  and  six  ;  the  Jews  at  this  time  had  mainly  given  up  their  own  division  of  the 
night  into  three  watches  (Judge  vii.  19),  and  adopted  the  four  Roman  watches  between  six  p.m.  and  six 
a.m.     They  had  only  rowed  twenty -five  furlongs,  and  the  lake  is  about  forty  wide. 

3  Mark  vi.  48. 

4  Job.  ix.  8. 

5  Mark  vi.  49.     Cf.  Luke  xxiv.  37. 

6  John  vi.  21,  "  were  willing  therefore  to  receive  Him  " — i.t.,  they  wished  to  do  so,  and  of  course  did. 
(Cf.  John  viii.  44.) 


288  THE  PRINXE  OF  GLORY. 

And  over  the  vessel's  side  into  the  troubled  waves  he  sprang,  and 
while  his  eye  was  fixed  on  his  Lord,  the  wind  might  toss  his  hair,  and 
the  spray  might  drench  his  robes,  but  all  was  well ;  but  when,  with  waver- 
ing faith,  he  glanced  from  Him  to  the  furious  waves,  and  to  the  gulfy 
blackness  underneath,  then  he  began  to  sink,  '  and  in  an  accent  of  despair — 
how  unlike  his  former  confidence! — he  faintly  cried,  "Lord,  save  me!"^ 
Nor  did  Jesus  fail.  Instantly,  with  a  smile  of  pity.  He  stretched  out  His 
hand,  and  grasped  the  hand  of  His  drowning  disciple,  with  the  gentle 
rebuke,  "  O  thou  of  little  faith,  why  didst  thou  doubt  ? "  And  so,  his 
love  satisfied,  but  his  over-confidence  rebuked,  they  climb — the  Lord  and 
His  abashed  Apostle — into  the  boat  ;  and  the  wind  lulled,  and  amid  the 
ripple  of  waves  upon  a  moonlit  shore,  they  were  at  the  haven  where 
they  would  be;  and  all — the  crew  as  well  as  His  disciples — were  filled 
with  deeper  and  deeper  amazement,  and  some  of  them,  addressing  Him 
by  a  title  which  Nathanael  alone  had  applied  to  Him  before,  exclaimed, 
"Truly  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God." 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  longer  over  this  wonderful  narrative,  perhaps 
of  all  others  the  most  difficult  for  our  feeble  faith  to  believe  or  under- 
stand. Some  have  tried  in  various  methods  to  explain  away  its  miraculous 
character;  they  have  labored  to  show  that  fVi  Tt)v  ddXaffffav,^  "on  the  sea," 
may  mean  no  more  than  that  Jesus  walked  along  the  shore  parallel  to  the 
vessel  ;  or  even  that,  in  the  darkness,  the  Apostles  may  have  thought  at 
first  that  He  was,  or  had  been,  walking  upon  the  sea.  Such  subterfuges 
are  idle  and  superfluous.  If  any  man  find  himself  unable  to  believe  in 
miracles — if  he  even  think  it  wrong  to  try  and  acquire  the  faith  which 
accepts  them — then  let  him  be  thoroughly  convinced  in  his  own  mind, 
and  cling  honestly  to  the  truth  as  he  conceives  it.  It  is  not  for  us,  or 
for  any  man,  to  judge  another ;  to  his  own  Master  he  standeth  or  falleth. 
But  let  him  not  attempt  to  foist  such  disbelief  into  the  plain  narrative  of 
the  Evangelists.  That  ///rj'  intended  to  describe  an  amazing  miracle  is  in- 
disputable to  any  one  who  carefully  reads  their  words  ;  and,  as  I  have 
said  before,  if,  believing  in  God,  we  believe  in  a  Divine  Providence  over 
the  lives  of  men — and,  believing  in  that  Divine  Providence,  believe  in  the 
miraculous — and,  believing  in  the  miraculous,  accept  as  truth  the  resurrection 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ — and,  believing    that    resurrection,  believe    that 

1  How  unlike  forgery,  or  falsehood,  or  myth,  is  this! 

2  "In  this  moment  of  peril,"  as  Archbishop  Trench  strikingly  observes,   "his  swimmer's  art  (John 
xxi.  7)  profits  him  nothing;  for  there  is  no  mingling  in  this  way  of  nature  and  grace."     Cf.  Ps.  xciv.  i8. 

3  John  vi.  15. 


THE   SYRO-PHCENICIAN   WOMAN.— Mark  vii.  24. 


CHRIST    FEEDING    THE    MULTHUDE.  — Matt.  XIV.   I9. 


FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND— WALKING  ON  THE  SEA.  289 

He  was  indeed  the  Son  of  God — then,  however  deeply  we  may  realize 
the  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power  of  natural  laws,  we  realize  yet 
more  deeply  the  power  of  Him  who  holds  those  laws,  and  all  which  they 
have  evolved,  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand;  and  to  us  the  miraculous,  when 
thus  attested,  will  be  in  no  way  more  stupendous  than  the  natural,  nor  shall 
we  find  it  an  impossible  conception  that  He  who  sent  His  Son  to  earth  to 
die  for  us  should  have  put  all  authority  into   His  hand. 

So  then  if,  like  Peter,  we  fix  our  eyes  on  Jesus,  we  too  may  walk 
triumphantly  over  the  swelling  waves  of  disbelief,  and  unterrified  amid  the 
rising  winds  of  doubt ;  but  if  we  turn  away  our  eyes  from  Him  in  whom 
we  have  believed — if,  as  it  is  so  easy  to  do,  and  as  we  are  so  much  tempted 
to  do,  we  look  rather  at  the  power  and  fury  of  those  terrible  and  destructive 
elements  than  at  Him  who  can  help  and  save — then  we  too  shall  inevitably 
sink.  Oh,  if  we  feel,  often  and  often,  that  the  water-floods  threaten  to  drown 
us,  and  the  deep  to  swallow  up  the  tossed  vessel  of  our  Church  and  Faith, 
may  it  again  and  again  be  granted  us  to  hear  amid  the  storm  and  the 
darkness,  and  the  voices  prophesying  war,  those  two  sweetest  of  the 
Saviour's  utterances — 

"Fear  not.     Only  believe." 

"  It  is  I.      Be  not  afraid." 


CHAPTER     XXX. 


THE    DISCOURSE    AT    CAPERNAUM. 


D^^C^^J^ 


His  grace  is  not  physically  consumed." 


HE  dawn  of  that  day  broke  on  one  of  the  sad- 
dest episodes  of  our  Saviour's  life.  It  was  the 
day  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum  on  which 
He  deliberately  scattered  the  mists  and  exhala- 
tions of  such  spurious  popularity  as  the  Miracle 
of  the  Loaves  had  gathered  about  His  person 
and  His  work,  and  put  not  only  His  idle  fol- 
lowers, but  some  even  of  His  nearer  disciples, 
to  a  test  under  which  their  love  for  Him 
entirely  failed.  That  discourse  in  the  syna- 
gogue forms  a  marked  crisis  in  His  career.  It 
was  followed  by  manifestations  of  surprised  dislike  which 
were  as  the  first  mutterings  of  that  storm  of  hatred  and 
persecution  which  was  henceforth  to  burst  over  His  head. 
We  have  seen  already  that  some  of  the  multitude, 
filled  with  vague  wonder  and  insatiable  curiosity,  had  lingered  on  the 
little  plain  by  Bethsaida  Julias  that  they  might  follow  the  movements  of 
Jesus,  and  share  in  the  blessings  and  triumphs  of  which  they  expected 
an  immediate  manifestation.  They  had  seen  Him  dismiss  His  disciples, 
and  had  perhaps  caught  glimpses  of  Him  as  He  climbed  the  hill  alone; 
they  had  observed  that  the  wind  was  contrary,  a-nd  that  no  other  boat 
but  that  of  the  Apostles  had  left  the  shore ;  they  made  sure,  therefore, 
of  finding  Him  somewhere  on  the  hills  above  the  plain.  Yet  when  the 
morning  dawned  they  saw  no  trace  of  Him  either  on  plain  or  hill. 
Meanwhile  some  little  boats— perhaps  driven  across  by  the  same  gale 
which  had  retarded  the  opposite  course  of  the  disciples — had  arrived 
from  Tiberias.  They  availed  themselves  of  these  to  cross  over  to 
Capernaum  ;  and  there,  already  in  the  early  morning,  they  found  Him 
after  all  the  fatigues    and    agitations    of    yesterday — after  the  day  of  sad 


THE  DISCOURSE  AT  CAPERNAUM.  291 

tidings  and  ceaseless  toil,  after  the  night  of  stormy  solitude  and  ceaseless 
prayer- — calmly  seated,  and  calmly  teaching,  in  the  familiar  synagogue.' 

"Rabbi,  when  didst  thou  get  hither?"  is  the  expression  of  their 
natural  surprise  ;  but  it  is  met  with  perfect  silence.  The  miracle  of  walk- 
ing on  the  water  was  one  of  necessity  and  mercy  ;  it  in  no  way  concerned 
them  ;  it  was  not  in  any  way  intended  for  them  ;  nor  was  it  mainly  or  es-V 
sentially  as  a  worker  of  miracles  that  Christ  wished  to  claim  their  al- 
legiance or  convince  their  minds.  And,  therefore,  reading  their  hearts, 
knowing  that  they  were  seeking  Him  in  the  very  spirit  which  He  most 
disliked,  He  quietly  drew  aside  the  veil  of  perhaps  half-unconscious 
hypocrisy  which  hid  them  from  themselves,  and  reproached  them  for  seek- 
ing Him  only  for  what  they  could  get  from  Him — "not  because  ye  saw 
signs,  but  because  ye  ate  of  the  loaves  and  were  satisfied."  He  who 
never  rejected  the  cry  of  the  sufferer,  or  refused  to  answer  the  question 
of  the  faithful — He  who  would  never  break  the  bruised  reed,  or  quench 
the  smoking  flax — at  once  rejected  the  false  eye-service  of  mean  self- 
interest  and  vulgar  curiosity.  Yet  He  added  for  their  sakes  the  eternal 
lesson,  "  Labor  ye  not  for  the  meat  which  perisheth,  but  for  the  meat 
which  remaineth  to  eternal  life,  which  the  Son  of  Man  shall  give  you  ; 
for  Him  the  Father — even  God — hath   sealed." 

It  seems  as  if  at  first  they  were  touched  and  ashamed.  He  had  read 
their  hearts  aright,  and  they  ask  Him,  "What  are  we  to  do  that  we  may 
work  the  works  of  God?" 

"  This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  believe  on  Him  whom  He  hath 
sent."  "  But  what  sign  would  Jesus  give  them  that  they  should  believe 
in  Him  ?  Their  fathers  ate  the  manna  in  the  wilderness,  which  David 
had  called  bread  from  heaven."^  The  inference  was  obvious.  Moses  had 
given  them  manna  from  heaven  ;  Jesus  as  yet — they  hinted — had  only 
given  them  barley-loaves  of  earth.  But  if  He  were  the  true  Messiah,  was 
He  not,  according  to  all  the  legends  of  their  nation,  to  enrich  and  crown 
them,  and  to  banquet  them  on  pomegranates  from  Eden,  and  "  a  vine- 
yard of  red  wine,"  and  upon  the  flesh  of  Behemoth  and  Leviathan,  and 
the  great  bird  Bar  Juchne  ?  Might  not  the  very  psalm  which  they  haa 
quoted  have  taught  them  how  worse  than  useless  it  would  have  been  if 
Jesus    had    given    them    manna,  which,  in    their    coarse    literalism,    they 

1  And  eyen  this  teaching  must  have  been  preceded  by  works  of  healing  if  Matt.  xiv.  34 — 36  be  in 
strictly  chronological  sequence  ;  but  a  comparison  of  these  verses  with  Mark  vi.  53 — 56,  would  seeoi  to 
show  that  they  refer  more  to  a  period  than  to  a  particular  day. 

2  Ps.  Ixxviii.  24. 


292  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

supposed  to  be  in  reality  angels'  food  ?  Is  not  David  in  that  psalm 
expressly  showing  that  to  grant  them  one  such  blessing  was  only  to 
make  them  ask  greedily  for  more,  and  that  if  God  had  given  their 
fathers  more,  it  was  only  because  "  they  believed  not  in  God,  and  put 
not  their  trust  in  His  help;"  but  "while  the  meat  was  yet  in  their 
mouths,  the  heavy  wrath  of  God  came  upon  them,  and  slew  the  mightiest 
of  them,  and  smote  down  the  chosen  men  that  were  in  Israel?"  And 
does  not  David  show  that  in  spite  of,  and  before,  and  after,  this  wrath- 
ful granting  to  them  to  the  full  of  their  own  hearts'  lusts,  so  far  from 
believing  and  being  humble  they  only  sinned  yet  more  and  more  against 
Him,  and  provoked  Him  more  and  more?  Had  not  all  the  past  history 
of  their  nation  proved  decisively  that  faith  must  rest  on  deeper  fou'nda- 
tions  than  signs  and  miracles,  and  that  the  evil  heart  of  unbelief  must 
be  stirred  by  nobler  emotions  than  astonishment  at  the  outstretched 
hand  and  the  mighty  arm  ? 

But  Jesus  led  them  at  once  to  loftier  regions  than  those  of  historical 
conviction.  He  tells  them  that  He  who  had  given  them  the  manna  was 
not  Moses,  but  God  ;  and  that  the  manna  was  only  in  poetic  metaphor 
bread  from  heaven  ;  but  that  His  Father,  the  true  giver,  was  giving 
them  the  true  bread  from  heaven  even  now — even  the  bread  of  God 
which  came  down  from  heaven,  and  was  giving  life  to  the  world.  ' 

Their  minds  still  fastened  to  mere  material  images — their  hopes  still 
running  on  mere  material  benefits — they  ask  for  this  bread  from  heaven 
as  eagerly  as  the  woman  of  Samaria  had  asked  for  the  water  which 
quenches  all  thirst.     "  Lord,  now  and  always  give  7is  this  bread." 

Jesus  said  to  them,  "  I  am  the  bread  of  life.  He  that  cometh  to  me 
shall  never  hunger,  and  he  that  believeth  on  me  shall  never  thirst;"  and 
He  proceeds  to  point  out  to  them  that  He  came  to  do  the  Father's 
will,  and  that  His  will  was  that  all  who  came  to  His  Son  should  have 
eternal  life. 

Then  the  old  angry  murmurs  burst  out  again-^not  this  time  from 
the  vulgar-minded  multitude,  but  from  his  old  opponents  the  leading 
Jews'" — "How  could  He  say  that  He  came  down  from  heaven?  How 
could  He  call  Himself  the  bread  of  life?  Was  He  not  Jesus,  the  son  of 
Joseph,  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth?" 

Jesus  never  met  these  murmurs   about  His  supposed    parentage    and 

1  "  The  bread  of  God  is  thai  which  cometh  down,"  &c.,  not  "  Ae,"  as  in  the  English  version. 

2  John  vi.  41,  52. 


THE  DISCOURSE  AT  CAPERNAUM.  293 

place  of  birth  by  revealing  to  the  common  crowds  the  high  mystery  of 
His  earthly  origin.  He  thought  not  equality  with  God  a  thing  to  be 
seized  by  Him.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to  claim  His  own  Divinity,  or  de- 
mand the  homage  which  was  its  due.  He  would  let  the  splendor  of  His 
Divine  nature  dawn  on  men  gradually,  not  at  first  in  all  its  noonday 
brightness,  but  gently  as  the  light  of  morning  through  His  word  and 
works.  In  the  fullest  and  deepest  sense  "He  emptied  Himself  of  His 
glory." 

But  He  met  the  murmurers,  as  He  always  did,  by  a  stronger,  fuller, 
clearer  declaration  of  the  very  truth  which  they  rejected.  It  was  thus 
that  He  had  dealt  with  Nicodemus  ;  it  was  thus  that  He  had  taught  the 
woman  of  Samaria;  it  was  thus  also  that  He  answered  the  Temple  doc- 
tors who  arraigned  His  infringement  of  their  Sabbatic  rules.  But  the 
timid  Rabbi  and  the  erring  woman  had  been  faithful  enough  and  earnest 
enough  to  look  deeper  into  His  words  and  humbly  seek  their  meaning, 
and  so  to  be  guided  into  truth.  Not  so  with  these  listeners.  God  had 
drawn  them  to  Christ,  and  they  had  rejected  His  gracious  drawing  with- 
out which  they  could  not  come.  When  Jesus  reminded  them  that  the 
manna  was  no  life-giving  substance,  since  their  fathers  had  eaten  thereof 
and  were  dead,  but  that  He  was  Himself  the  bread  of  life,  of  which  all 
who  eat  should  live  for  ever ;  and  when,  in  language  yet  more  startling. 
He  added  that  the  bread  was  His  flesh  which  He  would  give  for  the 
life  of  the  world — then,  instead  of  seeking  the  true  significance  of  that 
deep  metaphor,  they  made  it  a  matter  of  mere  verbal  criticism,  and  only 
wrangled  '  together  about  the  idle  question,  "  How  can  this  man  give  us 
His  flesh  to  eat  ?  " 

Thus  they  were  carnally-minded,  and  to  be  carnally-minded  is  death. 
They  did  not  seek  the  truth,  and  it  was  more  and  more  taken  from  them. 
They  had  nothing,  and  therefore  from  them  was  taken  even  what  they 
had.  In  language  yet  more  emphatic,  under  figures  yet  more  startling 
in  their  paradox,  Jesus  said  to  them,  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you;"°  and  again, 

1  "  Were  fighting  "  (John  vi.  52).  How  needless  their  literalism  was  maybe  seen  from  many  Rabbinic 
passages  in  Lightfoot  (comp.  Ps.  xix.  10  ;  cxix.  3  ;  Isa.  iii.  i  ;  Prov.  ix.  5  ;  Ezek.  ii.  8,  9,  &c.),  (-g-,  "  Every 
eating  and  drinking  in  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes  is  to  be  understood  of  the  law  of  good  works  ;  "  "Israel 
shall  eat  the  years  of  the  Messiah  ;"  "  the  just  eat  of  the  Shechiiiah,"  &c. 

2  It  is  uncertain  whetlicr,  in  calling  Himself  the  Son  of  Man,  Jesus  meant  Bat-Adam  (Job  xxv.  6  ;  Ps. 
viii.  4),  i.e.,  a  representative  of  Humanity,  or  Bar-Enosh  (Dan.  vii.  13).  The  Hebrew  word  enosh  repre- 
sants  man  in  his  weakness.  It  probably  conveyed  to  His  hearers  a  general  conception  of  the  Messiah  as 
the  representative  of  Humanity  alike  in  its  feebleness  and  in  its  glory. 


294  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

as  a  still  further  enforcement  and  expansion    of    the  same  great  truths— 

"  He  that  eateth  of  this  bread  shall    live  for  ever." 

No  doubt  the  words  were  difficult,  and,  to  those  who  came  in  a 
hard  and  false  spirit,  offensive  ;  no  doubt  also  the  death  and  passion  of 
our  Saviour  Christ,  and  the  mystery  of  that  Holy  Sacrament,  in  which 
we  spiritually  eat  His  flesh  and  drink  His  blood,  has  enabled  us  more 
clearly  to  understand  His  meaning;  yet  there  was  in  the  words  which 
He  had  used,  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to  shadow  forth  to  every 
attentive  hearer  the  great  truth,  already  familiar  to  them  from  their  own 
Law,  that  "  Man  doth  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  pro- 
ceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  ; "  and  the  further  truth  that  eternal 
life,  the  life  of  the  soul,  was  to  be  found  in  the  deepest  and  most  inti- 
mate of  all  conceivable  communions  with  the  life  and  teaching  of  Him 
who  spake.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that  if  the  Lord's  Supper  has. 
for  us,  thrown  a  clearer  light  upon  the  meaning  of  this  discourse,  on  the 
other  hand  the  metaphors  which  Jesus  used  had  not,  to  an  educated 
Jew,  one-hundredth  part  of  the  strangeness  which  they  have  to  us.  Jewish 
literature  was  exceedingly  familiar  with  the  symbolism  which  represented 
by  "eating"  an  entire  acceptance  of  and  incorporation  with  the  truth, 
and  by  "bread"  a  spiritual  doctrine.  Even  the  mere  pictorial  genius  oi 
the  Hebrew  language  gave  the  clue  to  the  right  interpretation.  Those 
who  heard  Christ  in  the  synagogue  of  Capernaum  must  almost  involun- 
tarily have  recalled  similar  expressions  in  their  own  prophets  ;  and  since 
the  discourse  was  avowedly  parabolic — since  Jesus  had  expressly  excluded 
all  purely  sensual  and  Judaic  fancies — it  is  quite  clear  that  much  of  their 
failure  to  comprehend  Him  rose  not  from  the  understanding,  but  from 
the  will.  His  saying  was  hard,  as  St.  Augustine  remarks,  only  to  the 
hard  ;  and  incredible  only  to  the  incredulous.  For  if  bread  be  the  type 
of  all  earthly  sustenance,  then  the  "bread  of  heaven"  may  well  express 
all  spiritual  sustenance,  all  that  involves  and  supports  eternal  life.  Now 
the  lesson  which  He  wished  to  teach  them  was  this — that  eternal  life  is 
in  the  Son  of  God.  They,  therefore,  that  would  have  eternal  life  must  par- 
take of  the  bread  of  heaven,  or — to  use  the  other  and  deeper  image — 
must  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man.'     They  must 

I  The  following  profound  remark  of  Von  Ammon  will  help  the  reader  to  understand  this  chapter. 
"  What  is  true,"  he  says,  "  of  the  bread  of  heaven,  is  true  also  of  the  /esh  and  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man  ;  lot 
these  predicates  are  only  substitutes  for  the  original  image  of  the  bread  of  life,  and  are  subject  to  the  same 
analogical  explanations  as  this  last  is."  "  Believe,  and  thou  hast  eaten,"  is  the  formula  of  St.  Augustine  : 
••  believe,  and  thou  shall  eat,"  that  of  Calvin. 


THE  DISCOURSE  AT  CAPERNAUM.  295 

feed  071  Him  in  their  hearis  by  faith.  They  might  accept  or  reject  the 
truth  which  He  was  revealing  to  their  consciences,  but  there  could  be  no 
possible  excuse  for  their  pretended  incapacity  to  understand  its  meaning. 

There  is  a  teaching  which  is,  and  is  intended  to  be,  not  only  in- 
structive but  probationary  ;  of  which  the  immediate  purpose  is  not  only 
to  teach,  but  to  test.  Such  had  been  the  object  of  this  memorable  dis- 
course. To  comprehend  it  rightly  required  an  effort  not  only  of  the 
understanding,  but  also  of  the  will.  It  was  meant  to  put  an  end  to  the 
merely  selfish  hopes  of  that  "  rabble  of  obtrusive  chiliasts  "  whose  irrev- 
erent devotion  was  a  mere  cloak  for  worldliness  ;  it  was  vieant  also  to 
place  before  the  Jewish  authorities  words  which  they  were  too  full  of 
hatred  and  materialism  to  understand.  But  its  sifting  power  went  deeper 
than  this.  Some  even  of  the  disciples  found  the  saying  harsh  and  repul- 
sive. They  did  not  speak  out  openly,  but  Jesus  recognized  their  discon- 
tent, and  when  He  had  left  the  synagogue,  spoke  to  them,  in  this  third 
and  concluding  part  of  His  discourse,'  at  once  more  gently  and  less 
figuratively  than  He  had  done  to  the  others.  To  these  He  prophesied 
of  that  future  ascension,  which  should  prove  to  them  that  He  had  indeed 
come  down  from  heaven,  and  that  the  words  about  His  flesh — which 
should  then  be  taken  into  heaven— foz/A/  only  have  a  figurative  meaning. 
Nay,  with  yet  further  compassion  for  their  weakness.  He  intimated  to 
them  the  significance  of  those  strong  metaphors  in  which  He  had  pur- 
posely veiled  His  words  from  the  curious  eyes  of  selfishness  and  the 
settled  malice  of  opposition.  In  one  sentence  which  is  surely  the  key- 
note of  all  that  had  gone  before — in  a  sentence  which  surely  renders 
nugatory  much  of  the  pseudo-mystical  and  impossibly-elaborate  exegesis 
by  which  the  plain  meaning  of  this  chapter  has  been  obscured,  He  added — 

"  It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth  ;  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing :  the 
words  that  I  speak^  u7ito  you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life."  Why 
then  had  they  found  His  words  so  hard?  He  tells  them:  it  was  because 
some  of  them  believed  not ;  it  was  because,  as  He  had  already  told  the 
Jews,  the  spirit  of  faith  is  a  gift  and  grace  of  God,  which  gift  these  mur- 
murers  were  rejecting,  against  which  grace  they  were  struggling  even  now.^ 

1  It  will  be  observed  that  verses  26 — 40  are  addressed  mainly  to  the  multitude  ;  verses  43 — 58  to  the 
leading  Jews  ;  verses  61 — 65  to  the  disciples. 

2  Or  perhaps  "  have  spoken,"  but  I  would  not,  with  Stier  and  Alford,  confine  the  word  merely  to  "  my 
flesh  "  and  "  my  blood." 

3  There  seems  to  be  a  special  reference  to  Judas  in  these  words  (ver.  66),  and  it  seems  very  probable 
that  the  first  obvious  extinction  of  purely  temporal  Messianic  hopes  may  have  been  with  him  the  turning- 
point  of  that  rejection  which  ended  in  his  ultimate  treachery. 


296  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

And  from  that  time  many  of  them  left  Him;  many  who  had  hitherto 
sought  Him,  many  who  were  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Even 
in  the  midst  of  crowds  His  life  was  to  be  lonelier  thenceforth,  because 
there  would  be  fewer  to  know  and  love  Him.  In  deep  sadness  of  heart 
He  addressed  to  the  Twelve  the  touching  question,  "  Will  ye  also  go 
away?"  It  was  Simon  Peter  whose  warm  heart  spoke  out  impetuously 
for  all  the  rest.  He  at  least  had  rightly  apprehended  that  strange  dis- 
course at  which  so  many  had  stumbled.  "Lord,"  he  exclaims,  "to  whom 
shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life.  But  we  believe 
and  are  sure  that  Thou  art  the  Holy  One  of  God."' 

It  was  a  noble  confession,  but  at  that  bitter  moment '  the  heart  of 
Jesus  was  heavily  oppressed,  and  He  only  answered — 

"Have  not  I  chosen  you  twelve,  and  one  of  you  is  a  devil?"' 

The  expression  was  terribly  strong,  and  the  absence  of  all  direct 
parallels  renders  it  difficult  for  us  to  understand  its  exact  significance. 
But  although  it  was  afterwards  known  that  the  reproach  was  aimed  at 
Judas,  yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  at  the  actual  time  any  were  aware  of 
this  except  the  traitor  himself. 

Many  false  or  half-sincere  disciples  had  left  him  :  might  not  these 
words  have  been  graciously  meant  to  furnish  one  more  opportunity  to 
the  hard  and  impure  soul  of  the  man  of  Kerioth,  so  that  before  being 
plunged  into  yet  deeper  and  more  irreparable  guilt,  he  might  leave  Him 
too?  If  so,  the  warning  was  rejected.  In  deadly  sin  against  his  own 
conscience,  Judas  stayed  to  heap  up  for  himself  wrath  "against  the  day 
of  wrath,  and  revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God." 

1  This,  and  not  "that  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God  " — a  confession  which  was  given  for  the  first 
time  some  months  afterwards — is  almost  undoubtedly  the  true  reading. 

2  The  English  version  is  unfortunate,  because  it  does  not  maintain  the  distinction  between  "accuser," 
the  word  here  used,  and  the  word  which  it  usually  renders  "  devil" — e.g.,  in  "  He  has  a  devil."  Euthymius 
here  explains  "  devil "  by  either  "  servant  of  the  devil "  or  "  conspirator  ;  "  and  the  latter  meaning  seems 
very  probable.  Indeed,  this  very  word  "conspirator  "  is  used  by  the  LXX.  to  render  the  Hebrew  Satan  in 
I  Kings  v.  4;  I  Sam.  xxix.  4.  I  have  already  noticed  how  much  more  lightly  the  Jews  (and  indeed  all 
Orientals  to  this  day)  used  the  word  "  Satan  "  than  we  do.  This  indeed  may  almost  be  called  a  modus 
loquendi  among  them,  and  if  Jesus  spoke  in  Aramaic,  and  used  the  word  Sattana,  then  the  reproach  is  not 
one-tenth  part  so  fearful  as  it  sounds  to  us.  Thus,  the  sons  of  Zeruiah  are  called  a  Satan  to  David  (2  Sam. 
xix.  22),  and  Hadad  is  called  a  "Satan"  to  King  Solomon  (i  Kings  xi.  23,  where  it  is  merely  rendered 
"adversary");  and  in  Matt.  xvi.  23,  the  word  is  applied  to  Peter  himself.  "When  the  ungodly  curseth 
Satan  "  {i.e.,  an  enemy  ?),  says  the  son  of  Sirach  (xxi.  27),  "  he  curseth  his  own  soul."  AH  this  is  important 
in  many  ways.  Further,  we  may  observe  that  "  accuser "  occurs  by  no  means  frequently  in  the  New 
Testament. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 


GATHERING      OPPOSITION. 


"Unwritten  empty  babblings  handed  down  by  external  tradition." 

)^^-^yc , 11,  ^^ 

LTHOUGH  the  discourse  which  we  have  just  nar- 
rated formed  a  marked  period  in  our  Lord's 
ministr)^  and  although  from  this  time  forward  the 
clouds  gather  more  and  more  densely  about  His 
course,  yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  was 
the  first  occasion,  even  in  Galilee,  on  which  enmity 
against  His  person  and  teaching  had  been  openly 
displayed. 

I.  The  earliest  traces  of  doubt  and  disaffection 
arose  from  the  expression  which  He  used  on 
several  occasions,  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee."  It 
was  in  these  words  that  He  had  addressed  the 
woman  that  was  a  sinner,  and  the  sick  of  the 
palsy.  On  both  occasions  the  address  had  excited 
astonishment  and  disapproval,  and  at  Simon's  house,  where  this  had  found 
no  open  expression,  and  where  no  miracle  had  been  wrought,  Jesus  gently 
substituted  another  expression.  '  But  it  was  not  so  at  the  healing  of  the 
palsied  man  ;  there  an  open  murmur  had  arisen  among  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  and  there,  revealing  more  of  His  true  majesty,  Jesus,  by  His 
power  of  working  miracles,  had  vindicated  His  right  to  forgive  sins. '  The 
argument  was  unanswerable,  for  not  only  did  the  prevalent  belief  connect 
sickness  in  every  instance  with  actual  sin,  but  also  it  was  generally  main- 
tained, even  by  the  Rabbis,  "that  no  sick  man  is  healed  from  his  disease 
until  all  his  sins  have  been  forgiven."  It  was,  therefore,  in  full  accordance 
with  their  own  notions  that  He  who  by  His  own  authority  could  heal 
diseases,  could  also,  by  His  own  authority,  pronounce  that  sins  w^ere  for- 
given.     It   was  true  that  they  could  hardly  conceive  of  either  healing  or 

1  Luke  vii.  48 — 50. 

2  Matt.  ix.  6;  Mark  ii.  10;  Luke  v.  24. 


298  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

forgiveness  conveyed  in  such  irregular  channels,  and  without  the  parapher- 
nalia of  sacrifices,  and  without  the  need  of  sacerdotal  interventions.  But, 
disagreeable  as  such  proceedings  were  to  their  well-regulated  minds,  the 
fact  remained  that  the  cures  were  actually  wrought,  and  were  actually 
attested  by  hundreds  of  living  witnesses.  It  was  felt,  therefore,  that  this 
ground  of  opposition  was  wholly  untenable,  and  it  was  tacitly  abandoned. 
To  urge  that  there  was  "blasphemy"  in  His  expressions  would  only  serve 
to  bring  into  greater  prominence  that  there  was  miracle  in    I'is  acts. 

2.  Nor,  again,  do  they  seem  to  have  pressed  the  charge,  preserved 
for  us  only  by  our  Lord's  own  allusion,  that  He  was  "a  glutton  and  a 
wine-drinker."  '  The  charge  was  too  flagrantly  false  and  malicious  to 
excite  any  prejudice  against  one  who,  although  He  did  not  adopt  the 
stern  asceticism  of  John,  yet  lived  a  life  of  the  extremest  simplicity,  and 
merely  did  what  was  done  by  the  most  scrupulous  Pharisees  in  accept- 
ing the  invitations  to  feasts,  where  He  had  constantly  fresh  opportuni- 
ties of  teaching  and  doing  good.  The  calumny  was,  in  fact,  destroyed 
when  He  had  shown  that  the  men  of  that  generation  were  like  wayward 
and  peevish  children  whom  nothing  could  conciliate,  charging  Jesus  with 
intemperance  because  He  did  not  avoid  an  innocent  festivity,  and 
John  with  demoniac  possession  because  he  set  his  face  against  social 
corruptions. 

3.  Nor,  once  more,  did  they  press  the  charge  of  His  not  fasting." 
In  making  that  complaint  they  had  hoped  for  the  powerful  aid  of  John's 
disciples  ;  but  when  these  had  been  convinced,  by  the  words  of  their 
own  prophet,  how  futile  and  unreasonable  was  their  complaint,  the 
Pharisees  saw  that  it  was  useless  to  found  a  charge  upon  the  neglect  of 
a  practice  which  was  not  only  unrecognized  in  the  Mosaic  law,^  but  which 
some  of  their  own  noblest  and  wisest  teachers  had  not  encouraged.* 
The  fact  that  Jesus  did  not  require  His  disciples  to  fast  would  certainly 
cause  no  forfeiture  of  the  popular  sympathy,  and  could  not  be  urged  to 
His  discredit  even   before  a  synagogue  or  a  Sanhedrin. 

1  Matt.  xi.  19 

2  Matt.  XI.  16,  17. 

3  Except  on  the  Great  Day  of  Atonement,  fh^ principle  of  the  answer  given  by  Jesus  to  the  disciples 
of  John  had  already  been  recognized  as  to  the  four  yearly  fasts  which  seem  to  have  become  usual  in  the 
time  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  (Zech.  viii.  ig).  It  is  curious  that  the  most  ancient  of  the  Rabbinic  treatises 
— the  AUgillath  Taanith,  written  before  the  destruction  ol  the  Temple — contains  merely  a  list  of  days  on 
which  It  is/i'rWa'alf/j  to  fast ,  at  the  end  of  it  are  a  certain  number  of  days  on  which  fasting  is  recom- 
mended ,  but  this  was  no  part  0/  the  original  work. 

4  Ex.  gr.    Simeon  th-j  Just,  who  made  the  Law,  Worship,  and  Charity  the  three  bases  of  the  world. 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  299 

4.  A  deeper  and  more  lasting  offense  was  caused,  and  a  far  more 
deadly  opposition  stimulated,  by  Christ's  choice  of  Matthew  as  an  Apostle, 
and  by  His  deliberate  tolerance  of — it  might  also  be  said  preference  for 
— the  society  of  publicans  and  sinners.'  Among  the  Jews  of  that  day  the 
distinctions  of  religious  life  created  a  barrier  almost  as  strong  as  that  of 
caste.  No  less  a  person  than  Hillel  had  said  that  "no  ignorant  person 
could  save  himself  from  sin,  and  no  '  man  of  the  people  '  be  pious."  A 
scrupulous  Jew  regarded  the  multitude  of  his  own  nation  who  "  knew  not 
the  Law "  as  accursed  ;  and  just  as  every  Jew,  holding  himself  to  be  a 
member  of  a  royal  generation  and  a  peculiar  people,  looked  on  the 
heathen  world  with  the  sovereign  disdain  of  an  exclusiveness  founded  on 
the  habits  of  a  thousand  years,  so  the  purist  faction  regarded  their  more 
careless  and  offending  brethren  as  being  little,  if  at  all,  better  than  the  very 
heathen.^  Yet  here  was  one  who  mingled  freely  and  familiarly — mingled 
without  one  touch  of  hauteur  or  hatred — among  offensive  publicans  and 
flagrant  sinners.  Nay,  more,  He  suffered  women,  out  of  whom  had  been 
cast  seven  devils,  to  accompany  Him  in  His  journeys,  and  harlots  to 
bathe  His  feet  with  tears  !  How  different  from  the  Pharisees,  who  held 
that  there  was  pollution  in  the  mere  touch  of  those  who  had  themselves 
been  merely  touched  by  the  profane  populace,  and  who  had  laid  down 
the  express  rule  that  no  one  ought  to  receive  a  guest  into  his  house  if 
he  suspected  him  of  being  a  sinner  !' 

Early  in  His  ministry,  Jesus,  with  a  divine  and  tender  irony,  had 
met  the  accusation  by  referring  them  to  His  favorite  passage  of  Scrip- 
ture— that  profound  utterance  of  the  prophet  Hosea,  of  which  He  bade 
them  "  go  and  learn  "  the  meaning — "  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifices." 
He  had  further  rebuked  at  once  their  unkindliness  and  their  self-satisfac- 
tion by  the  proverb,  "  They  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but 
they  that  are  sick."  The  objection  did  not,  however,  die  away.  In  His 
later  days,  when  He  was  journeying  to  Jerusalem,  these  incessant 
enemies  again  raised  the  wrathful  and  scornful  murmur,  "This  man 
receiveth  sinners  and  eateth  with    them ; "  *  and    then    it    was    that    Jesus 

1  Matt.  ix.  II  ;  xi.  19  ;  Luke  v.  30  ;  vii.  34  ;  xix.  7. 

2  Our  Lord,  when  He  said,  "  Let  him  be  unto  thee  as  a  heathen  man  and  a  publican  "  (Matt,  xviii. 
17),  was  simply  adopting  a  current  form  of  expression. 

3  One  of  the  six  things  forbidden  to  the  pupils  of  the  wise  was  "  to  sit  at  table  in  a  company  of  the  un- 
learned." 

4  <!ity(i)7tCo>' (Luke  XV.  2),  "  kept  angrily  muttering  to  each  other."  (See  jw/ra,  The  contrast 
of  this  conduct  with  that  of  the  Pharisees  becomes  more  striking  when  we  remember  the  extraordinary 
and  almost  ludicrous  precautions  which  they  took  to  secure  the  impossible  end  of  avoiding  every  conceivable 


300  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

answered  them  and  justified  His  ways,  and  revealed  more  clearly  and 
more  lovingly  than  had  ever  been  done  before  the  purpose  of  God's 
love  towards  repentant  sinners,  in  those  three  exquisite  and  memorable 
parables,  the  lost  sheep,  the  lost  piece  of  money,  and,  above  all,  the 
prodigal  son.  Drawn  from  the  simplest  elements  of  daily  experience, 
these  parables,  and  the  last  especially,  illustrated,  and  illustrated  for 
ever,  in  a  rising  climax  of  tenderness,  the  deepest  mysteries  of  the 
Divine  compassion — the  joy  that  there  is  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that 
repenteth.  '  Where,  in  the  entire  range  of  human  literature,  sacred  or 
profane,  can  anything  be  found  so  terse,  so  luminous,  so  full  of  infinite 
tenderness — so  faithful  in  the  picture  which  it  furnishes  of  the  conse- 
quences of  sin,  yet  so  merciful  in  the  hope  which  it  affords  to  amend- 
ment and  penitence — as  this  little  story  ?  How  does  it  summarize  the 
consolations  of  religion  and  the  sufferings  of  life  !  All  sin  and  punish- 
ment, all  penitence  and  forgiveness,  find  their  best  delineation  in  these 
few  brief  words.  The  radical  differences  of  temperament  and  impulse 
which  separate  different  classes  of  men — the  spurious  independence  of  a 
restless  free-will — the  preference  of  the  enjoyments  of  the  present  to  all 
hopes  of  the  future — the  wandering  far  away  from  that  pure  and  peaceful 
region  which  is  indeed  our  home,  in  order  to  let  loose  every  lower 
passion  in  the  riotous  indulgence  which  wastes  and  squanders  the  noblest 
gifts  of  life — the  brief  continuance  of  those  fierce  spasms  of  forbidden 
pleasure — the  consuming  hunger,  the  scorching  thirst,  the  helpless  slavery, 
the  unutterable  degradation,  the  uncompassionated  anguish  that  must  in- 
evitably ensue — where  have  these  myriad-times-repeated  experience  of  sin 
and  sorrow  been  ever  painted — though  here  painted  in  a  few  touches 
only — by  a  hand  more  tender  and  more  true  than  in  the  picture  of  that 
foolish  boy  demanding  prematurely  the  share  which  he  claims  of  his 
father's  goods  ;  journeying  into  a  far  country,  wasting  his  substance  with 
riotous  living  ;  suffering  from  want  in  the  mighty  famine  ;  forced  to  sub- 
mit to  the  foul  infamy  of  feeding  swine,  and  fain  to  fill  his  belly  with 
the  swine-husks  which  no  man  gave?''     And  then  the  coming  to  himself, 

legal  impurity  in  iheir  social  meals.  How  ineradicable  the  feeling  was,  we  may  see  most  strikingly 
by  observing  that  it  still  infected  even  some  of  the  disciples  and  apostles  long  years  after  the  resurrection 
of  their  Lord,  who  contended  with  Peter,  saying,  "Thou  wenteat  in  to  men  uncircumcised,  and  didst  eat 
with  them  !  "  (Acts  xi.  3) — the  exact  echo  of  the  caste-feeling  here  described  (cf.  Gal.  ii.  12). 

1  In  the  lost  sheep  we  have  the  stupid,  bewildered  sinner  ;  in  the  lost  drachma,  the  sinner  stamped 
with  God's  image,  but  lying  lost,  useless,  and  ignorant  of  his  own  worth  ;  in  the  prodigal  son,  the  conscious 
and  willing  sinner. 

2  This  conception  of  ignominy  would  be  far  more  intense  to  a  Jew  than  to  us.  The  Jews  detested 
swine  so  much,  tiiat  they  would  only  speak  of  a  pig  euphemistically  as  "another  thing."     The  husks  are 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  301 

the  memory  of  his  father's  meanest  servants  who  had  enough  and  to 
spare,  the  return  homewards,  the  agonized  confession,  the  humble,  con- 
trite, heart-broken  entreaty,  and  that  never-to-be-equaled  climax  which, 
like  a  sweet  voice  from  heaven,  has  touched  so  many  million  hearts  to 
penitence  and  tears — 

"And  he  arose  and  came  to  his  father.  But  when  he  was  yet  a 
great  way  off  his  father  saw  him  and  had  compassion,  and  ran,  and  fell 
on  his  neck,  and  kissed  him.  And  the  son  said  unto  him,  Father,  I  have 
sinned  against  heaven,  and  in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be 
called  thy  son.  But  the  father  said  to  the  servants,  Bring  forth  the  best 
robe  and  put  it  on  him,  and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand  and  shoes  on  his 
feet  :  and  bring  hither  the  fatted  calf  and  kill  it ;  and  let  us  eat  and  be 
merry  :    for  this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  was  lost  and  is  found." 

And  since  no  strain  could  rise  into  sweeter  and  nobler  tenderness — 
since  death  itself  could  reveal  no  lovelier  or  more  consolatory  lesson  than 
it  conveys  to  sinful  man — to  us  it  might  seem  that  this  is  the  true 
climax  of  the  parable,  and  that  here  it  shotild  end  as  with  the  music  of 
angel  harps.  And  here  it  would  have  ended  had  the  mystery  of  human 
malice  and  perversity  been  other  than  it  is.  But  the  conclusion  of  it 
bears  most  directly  on  the  very  circumstances  that  called  it  forth.  The 
angry  murmur  of  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  had  shown  how  utterly  igno- 
rant they  were,  in  their  cold  dead  hardness  and  pride  of  heart,  that,  in 
the  sight  of  God,  the  tear  of  one  truly  repentant  sinner  is  transcendently 
dearer  than  the  loveless  and  fruitless  formalism  of  a  thousand  Pharisees. 
Little  did  they  suspect  that  penitence  can  bring  the  very  harlot  and 
publican  into  closer  communion  with  their  Maker  than  the  combined  ex- 
cellence of  a  thousand  vapid  and  respectable  hypocrisies.  And  therefore 
it  was  that  Jesus  added  how  the  elder  son  came  in,  and  was  indignant 
at  the  noise  of  merriment,  and  was  angry  at  that  ready  forgiveness,  and 
reproached  the  tender  heart  of  his  father,  and  dragged  up  again  in  their 
worst  form  the  forgiven  sins  of  this  brother  whom  he  would  not  acknowl- 
edge, and  showed  all  the  narrow  unpardoning  malignity  of  a  heart  which 
had  mistaken  external  rectitude  for  holy  love.'     Such  self-righteous  malice, 

the  long  bean-like  pods  of  the  carob-tree.  or  Egyptian  fig.  I  have  tasted  them  in  Palestine  ;  they  are 
stringy,  sweetish,  coarse,  and  utterly  unlit  for  human  sustenance.  They  are  sold  by  fruiterers  in  Paris, 
and  are  said  to  be  used  in  distilling.  The  tree  was  called  the  "  locust-tree,"  from  the  mistaken  notion 
that  its  pods  are  the  "  locusts"  on  which  St.  John  fed  (Matt.  iii.  4  ;  Lev.  xi.  22). 

I  There  are  several  touches  in  the  original  which  a  translation  can  hardly  preserve,  but  which  show 
the  deepest  insight  into  the  angry  human  heart  in  all  its  mean  jealousies  and  rancors — e.g.,  the  sharp  in- 
dignant   ■' see '"  with  which  the  elder  son  begins  his  expostulation  ;    the    inability   to   recognize    his    free 


302  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

such  pitiless  and  repulsive  respectability,  is  an  evil  more  inveterate — a 
sore  more  difficult  to  probe,  and  more  hard  to  cure — than  open  disobedience 
and  passionate  sin.  And  truly,  when  we  read  this  story,  and  meditate 
deeply  over  all  that  it  implies,  we  may,  from  our  hearts,  thank  God  that 
He  who  can  bring  good  out  of  the  worst  evil — honey  out  of  the  slain 
lion,  and  water  out  of  the  flinty  rock — could,  even  from  an  exhibition  of 
such  a  spirit  as  this,  draw  His  materials  for  the  divinest  utterance  of  all 
revelation — the  parable  of  the  prodigal   son.' 

The  relation  of  Jesus  to  publicans  and  sinners  was  thus  explained, 
and  also  the  utter  antagonism  between  His  spirit  and  that  inflated 
religionism  which  is  the  wretched  and  hollow  counterfeit  of  all  real 
religion.  The  Judaism  of  that  day  substituted  empty  forms  and  mean- 
ingless ceremonies  for  true  righteousness  ;  it  mistook  uncharitable  exclu- 
siveness  for  genuine  purity  ;  it  delighted  to  sun  itself  in  the  injustice  of 
an  imagined  favoritism  from  which  it  would  fain  have  shut  out  all  God's 
other  children  ;  it  was  so  profoundly  hypocritical  as  not  even  to  recog- 
nize its  own  hypocrisy ;  it  never  thought  so  well  of  itself  as  when  it  was 
crushing  the  broken  reed  and  trampling  out  the  last  spark  from  the 
smoking  flax  ;  it  thanked  God  for  the  very  sins  of  others,  and  thought 
that  He  could  be  pleased  with  a  service  in  which  there  was  neither 
humility,  nor  truthfulness,  nor  loyalty,  nor  love.  These  poor  formalists, 
who  thought  that  they  were  so  rich  and  increased  with  goods,  had  to 
learn  that  they  were  wretched,  and  poor,  and  miserable,  and  blind,  and 
naked.  These  sheep,  which  fancied  that  they  had  not  strayed,  had  to 
understand  that  the  poor  lost  sheep  might  be  carried  home  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  Good  Shepherd  with  a  yet  deeper  tenderness  ;  these  elder 
sons  had  to  learn  that  their  Father's  spirit,  however  little  they  might  be 
able  to  realize  it  in  their  frozen  unsympathetic  hearts,  was  this :  "  It 
was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry  and  be  glad,  for  this  lAj  brother 
was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  was  lost  and  is  found."  ^ 

service  as  anything  better  than  a  constant  slavery,  "  I  slave  so  many  years  ;"  the  position  of  "  me"  in  the 
words,  "  you  never  gave  me  even  a  kid  that  /  might  enjoy  myself  with  my  friends  !  "  ;  the  use  of  "  this  son  of 
^«»r/"  instead  of  "my  brother,"  the  exaggerated  and  concentrated  malignity  of  the  words,  "who  de- 
voured ihy  substance  with  harlots,"  describing  his  brother's  wasted  life  m  its  worst  and  grossest  form. 
This  brutally  uncharitable  desire  to  make  the  worst  of  sin  repented  of,  is  the  basest  touch  of  all. 

1  I  have  here  touched  on  one  side  of  the  parable  only — its  individual  meaning.  Of  course  it  involves, 
on  all  sides,  infinitely  more  than  has  here  been  educed  from  it  r  especially  the  relation  of  Jews  to  the  Gen- 
tile world,  and  the  desperately  jealous  fury  and  rancor  kindled  in  the  Jewish  mind  (Acts  xiii.  50,  xxviii.  28, 
&c.)  by  the  bare  mention  of  the  truth  that  God  could  accept,  and  pardon,  and  bless  the  Gentiles  r.o  less 
than  the  children  of  Abraham. 

2  He  will  not  encourage  the  jealous  hatred  which  had  peeped  out  in  the  elder  son's  half-repudiation 
of  this  relationship  {"  this  son  of  thine,  '  Luke  xv.  30). 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  305 

5.  But  however  much  it  might  be  manifest  that  the  spirit  of  the  Christ 
and  the  spirit  of  the  Pharisee  were  inaHenably  opposed  to  each  other, 
yet  up  to  this  point  the  enemies  of  Jesus  were  unable  to  ruin  His 
influence  or  check  His  work.  To  forgive,  with  the  same  word  which 
healed  the  diseases,  the  sins  by  which  they  believed  all  diseases  to  be 
caused — to  join  in  social  festivities — to  associate  with  publicans  and  sin- 
ners— were  not,  and  could  not  be  construed  into,  offenses  against  the 
law. 

But  a  weightier  charge,  more  persistently  reiterated,  more  violently 
resented,  remained  behind — a  charge  of  distinctly  violating  the  express 
laws  of  Moses  by  non-observance  of  the  Sabbath.  This  it  was  which 
caused  a  surprise,  an  exacerbation,  a  madness,  a  thirst  for  sanguinary 
Tengeance,  which  pursued  Him  to  the  very  cross.  For  the  Sabbath  was 
a  Mosaic,  nay,  even  a  primeval  institution,  and  it  had  become  the  most 
distinctive  and  the  most  passionately  reverenced  of  all  the  ordinances 
which  separated  the  Jews  from  the  Gentiles  as  a  peculiar  people.  It  was 
at  once  the  sign  of  their  exclusive  privileges,  and  the  center  of  their 
barren  formalism.  Their  traditions,  their  patriotism,  even  their  obstin- 
acy, were  all  enlisted  in  its  scrupulous  maintenance.  Not  only  had  it 
been  observed  in  heaven  before  man  was,  but  they  declared  that  the 
people  of  Israel  had  been  chosen  for  the  sole  purpose  of  keeping  it."^ 
Was  it  not  even  miraculously  kept  by  the  Sabbatical  river  of  the  Holy 
City?  Their  devotion  to  it  was  only  deepened  by  the  universal  ridicule, 
inconvenience,  and  loss  which  it  entailed  upon  them  in  the  heathen 
world.  They  were  even  proud  that,  from  having  observed  it  with  a 
stolid  literalism,  they  had  suffered  themselves  on  that  day  to  lose  battles, 
to  be  cut  to  pieces  by  their  enemies,  to  see  Jerusalem  itself  imperiled 
and  captured.  Its  observance  had  been  fenced  round  by  the  minutest, 
the  most  painfully  precise,  the  most  ludicrously  insignificant  restrictions. 
The  Prophet  had  called  it  "  a  delight,"  and  therefore  it  was  a  duty  even  for 
the  poor  to  eat  three  times  on  that  day.  They  were  to  feast  on  it,  though 
no  fire  was  to  be  lighted  and  no  food  cooked.  According  to  the  stiff 
and  narrow  school  of  Shammai,  no  one  on  the  Sabbath  might  even  com- 
fort the  sick  or  enliven  the  sorrowful.  Even  the  preservation  of  life  was 
a  breaking  of  the  Sabbath  ;  and,    on    the    other  hand,  even  to  kill  a  flea 

I  These  extravagances  occur  in  the  Book  of  Jubilees,  a  collection  of  fiercely  fanatical  notions  which  dates 
from  the  first  century.  For  the  fable  of  the  Sabbatic  river  (which  probably  arose  from  the  intermittent 
character  of  some  of  the  springs  about  Jerusalem),  see  Josephus.  It  might  be  said,  however,  to  violate  the 
Sabbath  rather  than  keep  it,  for  it  only  ran  every  seventh  day. 


304  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

was  as  bad  as  to  kill  a  camel.'  Had  not  the  command  to  "do  no  man- 
ner of  work  upon  the  Sabbath  day "  been  most  absolute  and  most  em- 
phatic ?  had  not  Moses  himself  and  all  the  congregation  caused  the  son 
of  Shelomith  to  be  stoned  to  death  for  merely  gathering  sticks  upon  it  ? 
had  not  the  Great  Synagogue  itself  drawn  up  the  thirty-nine  abhoth  and 
quite  innumerable  toldoth,  or  prohibitions  of  labors  which  violated  it  in 
the  first  or  in  the  second  degree  ?  Yet  here  was  One,  claiming  to  be  a 
prophet,  yea,  and  more  than  a  prophet,  deliberately  setting  aside,  as  it 
seemed  to  them,  the  traditional  sanctity  of  that  day  of  days  !  An  atten- 
tive reader  of  the  Gospels  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  large  a  portion 
of  the  enmity  and  opposition  which  our  Lord  excited,  not  only  in  Jeru- 
salem, but  even  in  Galilee  and  in  Peraea,  turned  upon  this  point  alone.' 
The  earliest  outbreak  of  the  feeling  in  Galilee  must  have  occurred 
shortly  after  the  events  narrated  in  the  last  chapter.  The  feeding  of  the 
five  thousand,  and  the  discourse  in  the  synagogue  of  Capernaum,  took 
place  immediately  before  a  Passover.  None  of  the  Evangelists  narrate 
the  events  which  immediately  succeeded.  If  Jesus  attended  this  Passover, 
He  must  have  done  so  in  strict  privacy  and  seclusion,  and  no  single 
incident  of  His  visit  has  been  recorded.  It  is  more  probable  that  the 
peril  and  opposition  which  He  had  undergone  in  Jerusalem  were  sufficient 
to  determine  His  absence  "until  this  tyranny  was  overpast." '  It  is  not, 
however,  impossible  that,  if  He  did  not  go  in  person)  some  at  least  of 
His  disciples  fulfilled  this  national    obligation  ;    and  it  may  have  been  an 

1  You  must  not  walk  through  a  stream  on  stilts,  (or  you  really  carried  the  stilts.  A  woman  must 
not  go  out  with  any  ribbons  about  her,  unless  they  were  sewed  to  her  dress.  A  false  tooth  must  not  be 
worn.  A  person  with  the  toothache  might  not  rinse  his  mouth  with  vinegar,  but  he  might  hold  it  in  his 
mouth  and  swallow  it.  No  one  might  write  down  twq  letters  of  the  alphabet.  The  sick  might  not  send  for 
a  physician.  A  person  with  lumbago  might  not  rub  or  foment  the  affected  part.  A  tailor  must  not  go  out 
with  his  needle  on  Friday  night,  lest  he  should  forget  it,  and  so  break  the  Sabbath  by  carrying  it  aboat. 
A  cock  must  not  wear  a  piece  of  ribbon  round  its  leg  on  the  Sabbath,  for  this  would  be  to  carry  something! 
Shammai  would  not  entrust  a  letter  to  -i. pa^an  after  VVednesdaj-,  lest  he  should  not  have  arrived  at  his  destina- 
tion on  the  Sabbath.  He  was  occupied,  we  are  told,  all  the  week  with  thinking  as  to  how  he  should  keep 
the  Sabbath.  The  Shammaites  held  that  Sabbatism  applied  (i)  to  men,  (2)  to  beasts,  (3)  to  things.  The 
Hillelites  denied  the  last,  not  holding  it  necessary  to  put  out  a  lamp  which  had  been  kindled  before  the 
Sabbath,  or  to  remove  fish-nets,  or  to  prevent  the  dropping  of  oil  in  a  press.  The  Rabbi  Kolonimos,  having 
been  accused  of  murdering  a  boy,  wrote  on  a  piece  of  paper,  put  it  on  the  dead  boy's  lips,  and  so  made  the 
corpse  rise  and  reveal  the  true  murderer,  in  order  to  save  himself  from  being  torn  to  pieces.  As  this  had 
been  done  on  the  Sabbath,  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  penance,  and  on  his  death-bed  ordered  that  for 
a  hundred  years  every  one  who  passed  should  fling  a  stone  at  his  tomb,  because  every  one  who  profaned 
the  Sabbath  should  be  stoned  !  Synesius  tells  a  story  of  a  pilot  who,  in  the  midst  of  a  storm,  dropped  the 
rudder  when  the  Sabbath  began,  and  would  only  take  it  again  when  his  life  was  threatened. 

2  See  instances  in  Matt.  xii.  i,  et  seq.  ;  Mark  ii.  23 — 28  ;  iii.  i — 6  ;  Luke  vi.  i — 11  ;  xiii.  14 — 17  ;  xiv. 
I — 6;  John  v.  10,  et  seq. ;  vii.   23  ;  ix.  14,  et  seq. 

3  John  V.  16,  iS. 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  305 

observation  of  their  behavior,  combined  with  the  deep  hatred  inspired  by 
His  bidding  the  healed  man  take  up  his  bed  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  by 
the  ground  which  He  had  taken  in  defending  Himself  against  that  charge, 
which  induced  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  of  Jerusalem  to  send  some  of 
their  number  to  follow  His  steps,  and  to  keep  an  espionage  upon  His 
actions,  even  by  the  shores  of  His  own  beloved  lake.  Certain  it  is  that 
henceforth,  at  every  turn  and  every  period  of  His  career — in  the  corn- 
fields, in  synagogues,  in  feasts,  during  journeys,  at  Capernaum,  at  Magdala, 
in  Peraea,  at  Bethany — we  find  Him  dogged,  watched,  impeded,  reproached, 
questioned,  tempted,  insulted,  conspired  against  by  these  representatives 
of  the  leading  authorities  of  His  nation,  of  whom  we  are  repeatedly  told 
that  they  were  not  natives  of  the  place,  but  "  certain  which  came  from 
Jerusalem."' 

i.  The  first  attack  in  Galilee  arose  from  the  circumstance  that,  in 
passing  through  the  corn-fields  on  the  Sabbath  day,""  His  disciples,  who 
were  suffering  from  hunger,  plucked  the  ears  of  corn,  rubbed  them  in 
the  palms  of  their  hands,  blew  away  the  chaff,  and  ate.  Undoubtedly 
this  was  a  very  high  offense — even  a  capital  offense — in  the  eyes  of  the 
Legalists.  To  reap  and  to  thresh  on  the  Sabbath  were  of  course  forbid- 
den by  one  of  the  abhoth,  or  primary  rules ;  but  the  Rabbis  had  decided 
that  to  pluck  corn  was  to  be  construed  as  reaping,  and  to  rub  it  as 
threshing;  even  to  walk  on  grass  was  forbidden,  because  that  too  was  a 
species  of  threshing ;  and  not  so  much  as  a  fruit  must  be  plucked  from 
a  tree.3  All  these  latter  acts  were  violations  of  the  toldoth,  or  "  deriva- 
tive rules."  Perhaps  these  spying  Pharisees  had  followed  Jesus  on  this 
Sabbath  day  to  watch  whether  He  would  go  more  than  the  prescribed 
tecIiUm    ha-Shabbeth,  or    Sabbath-day's    journey    of    two    thousand    cubits ; 

1  Matt.  XV.  i;  Mark  iii.  22;  vii.  I.  Those,  however,  mentioned  at  an  earlier  period  (Luke  v.  17)  were 
not  the  same  as  these  hostile  spies.  We  see  from  Acts  xiv.  19;  xvii.  13;  Gal.  ii.  12,  how  common  among 
the  Jews  was  the  base  and  demoralizing  spirit  of  heresy-hunting. 

2  This  Sabbath  is  called  in  St.  Luke  by  the  mysterious  name  of  the  second-first  Sabbath,  i.e.,  "  the  first 
Sabbath  of  the  second,"  not  zdce  versa  as  in  the  English  version.  There  is  not  much  importance  in  discover- 
ing the  exact  significance  of  this  isolated  expression,  because  the  time  of  year  is  amply  marked  by  the  fact 
that  the  wheat  (for  the  context  shows  that  it  could  hardly  have  been  barley)  was  ripe — i.e.,  that  the  time 
was  a  week  or  two  after  the  Passover,  when  the  first  ripe  sheaf  was  offered  as  the  first-fruits  of  the  harvest. 
It  is  probable  that  in  the  warm  hollow  of  Gennesareth  corn  ripened  earlier  than  on  the  plains.  The  only 
opinions  which  seem  sufficiently  probable  and  sufficiently  supported  to  make  it  worth  while  to  mention  them 
are — I.  The  first  Sabbath  of  the  second  month.  2.  The  first  Sabbath  in  the  second  year  of  the  Sabbatical 
cycle.     3.  The  first  Sabbath  after  the  second  day  of  unleavened  bread. 

3  Similarly,  since  "building"  was  one  of  the  thirty-nine  works  forbidden  on  the  Sabbath,  curdling 
milk  was  also  forbidden,  because  it  was  a  sort  of  building.  Forbidden  works  were  divided  into  "  fathers'' 
and  "  descendants  ;"  and  to  build  was  one  of  the  former  ;  to  make  cheese,  one  of  the  latter. 

20 


3o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

but  here  they  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  light  upon  a  far  more 
heinous  and  flagrant  scandal — an  act  of  the  disciples  which,  strictly  and 
technically  speaking,  rendered  them  liable  to  death  by  stoning.  Jesus 
Himself  had  not  indeed  shared  in  the  offense.  If  we  may  press  the 
somewhat  peculiar  expression  of  St.  Mark,  He  was  walking  along  through 
the  corn-fields  by  the  ordinary  path,  bearing  His  hunger  as  best  He 
might,  while  the  disciples  were  pushing  for  themselves  a  road  through 
the  standing  corn  by  plucking  the  ears  as  they  went  along."  Now  there 
was  no  harm  whatever  in  plucking  the  ears  ;  that  was  not  only  sanc- 
tioned by  custom,  but  even  distinctly  permitted  by  the  Mosaic  law.''  But 
the  heinous  fact  was  that  this  should  be  done  on  a  Sabbath!  Instantly 
the  Pharisees  are  round  our  Lord,  pointing  to  the  disciples  with  the 
angry  question,  "  See  !  why  do  they " — with  a  contemptuous  gesture 
towards  the  disciples — "  do  that  which  is  not  lawful  on  the  Sabbath  day  ?  " 
With  that  divine  and  instantaneous  readiness,  with  that  depth  of 
insight  and  width  of  knowledge  which  characterized  His  answers  to  the 
most  sudden  surprises,  Jesus  instantly  protected  His  disciples  with  per- 
sonal approval  and  decisive  support.  As  the  charge  this  time  was  aimed 
not  at  Himself  but  at  His  disciples.  His  line  of  argument  and  defense 
differs  entirely  from  that  which,  as  we  have  seen.  He  had  adopted  at 
Jerusalem.  There  He  rested  His  supposed  violation  of  the  Law  on  His 
personal  authority;  here,  while  He  again  declared  Himself  the  Lord  of 
the  Sabbath,  He  instantly  quoted  first  from  their  own  Cethubhitn,  then 
from  their  own  Law,  a  precedent  and  a  principle  which  absolved  His 
followers  from  all  blame.  "  Have  ye  not  read,"  He  asked,  adopting  per- 
haps with  a  certain  delicate  irony,  as  he  did  at  other  times,  a  favorite 
formula  of  their  own  Rabbis,  "how  David  not  only  went^  into  the  House 
of  God  on  the  Sabbath  day,*  but  actually  ate  the  sanctified  shrewbread, 
which  it  was  expressly  forbidden  for  any  but  the  priests  to  eat  ? "  If 
David,    their    hero,     their    favorite,     their    saint,     had    thus    openly    and 

1  Mark  ii.  23,  which,  in  classical  Greek,  would  mean  "began  to  make  themselves  a  road  hy  plucki»g." 
It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  the  classical  usage  "  to  make  a  way,"  can  be  pressed,  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  on  this  supposition  the  phrase  would  be  a  very  curious  one. 

2  Deut.  .Kxiii.  25.  I  was  surprised  to  see  that  the  Arabs  in  some  fields  near  the  summit  of  Gerizim 
looked  on  with  perfect  indifference  while  our  weary  horses  ate  freely  of  the  green  springing  corn. 

3  Some,  however,  have  imagined  that  David  merely  represented  himself  as  being  accompanied  by 
followers. 

4  This  results  both  from  the  fact  of  the  precedent  being  here  adduced  and  from  i  Sam.  xxi.  6  (com- 
pared with  Lev.  xxiv.  8,  9).  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  this  very  chapter  had  been  read  in  the 
morning  Synagogue  service  of  the  day.  The  service  was  probably  over,  because  none  of  the  three  meals 
took  place  till  then. 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  307 

flagrantly  violated  the  letter  of  the  Law,  and  had  yet  been  blameless  on 
the  sole  plea  of  a  necessity  higher  than  any  merely  ceremonial  injunc- 
tion, why  were  the  disciples  to  blame  for  the  harmless  act  of  sating 
their  hunger  ?  And  again,  if  their  own  Rabbis  had  laid  it  down  that 
there  was  "  no  Sabbatism  in  the  Temple  ;  "  that  the  priests  on  the  Sab- 
bath might  hew  the  wood,  and  light  the  fires,  and  place  hot  fresh-baked 
shrewbread  on  the  table,  and  slay  double  victims,  and  circumcise  chil- 
dren, and  thus' in  every  way  violate  the  rules  of  the  Sopherim  about  the 
Sabbath,  and  yet  be  blameless ' — nay,  if  in  acting  thus  they  were  break- 
ing the  Sabbath  at  the  bidding  of  the  very  Law  which  ordains  the  Sab- 
bath— then  if  the  Temple  excuses  them,  ought  not  something''  greater 
than  the  Temple  to  excuse  these  ?  And  there  was  something  greater 
than  the  Temple  here.  And  then  once  more  He  reminds  them  that 
mercy  is  better  than  sacrifice.  Now  the  Sabbath  was  expressly  designed 
for  mercy,  and  therefore  not  only  might  all  acts  of  mercy  be  blamelessly 
performed  thereon,  but  such  acts  would  be  more  pleasing  to  God  than 
all  the  insensate  and  sel^satisfied  scrupulosities  which  had  turned  a  rich 
blessing  into  a  burden  and  a  snare.  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man, 
not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  and  therefore  the  Son  of  Man  is  Lord  also  of 
the  Sabbath.' 

In  the  Codex  Bezae,  an  ancient  and  valuable  manuscript  now  in  the 
University  Library  at  Cambridge,  there  occurs  after  Luke  vi.  5  this  re- 
markable addition — "  On  the  same  day,  seeing  one  working  on  the  Sab- 
bath, He  said  to  him,  O  man,  if  indeed  thou  knowest  what  thou  doest, 
thou  art  blessed ;  but  if  thou  knoiuest  not,  thou  art  accursed,  and  a  tra7is- 
gressor  of  the  laiu."  The  incident  is  curious  ;  it  is  preserved  for  us  in 
this  manuscript  alone,  and  it  may  perhaps  be  set  aside  as  apocryphal,  or 
at  best  as  one  of  those  "  unrecorded  sayings "  which,  like  Acts  xx.  35, 
are  attributed  to  our  Lord  by  tradition  only.  Yet  the  story  is  too  strik- 
ing, too  intrinsically  probable,  to  be  at  once  rejected  as  unauthentic. 
Nothing  could  more  clearly  illustrate  the  spirit  of  our  Lord's  teaching,  as 
it  was  understood,  for  instance,  by  St.   Paul.''      For    the    meaning  of    the 

1  Even  Hillel  had  some  partial  insight  into  this  truth.  He  settled  the  question  that  if  the  Passover  day 
fell  on  a  Sabbath  the  Paschal  lamb  might  be  slain  by  each  Israelite  in  his  own  house,  because  lambs 
were  slain  in  the  Temple  on  every  Sabbath  by  the  priests. 

2  "A  greater  thing,"  neuter,  not  masculine,  as  in  the  English  version  (Matt.  xii.  6). 

3  Mark  ii.  27,  2S.  A  similar  maxim  (doubtless  borrowed  from  this,  and  borrowed  without  profit)  is 
found  in  the  Talmud,  "  The  Sabbath  is  given  to  thee,  not  thou  to  the  Sabbath." 

4  Compare  the  closely  analogous  expressions  of  St.  Paul  about  eating  "things  offered  to  idols  "  (i  Cor. 
viii.  i).       Some  authors  have  rejected  this  story  almost  with  contempt ;  yet  could  it  be  more  wrong  of  the 


3o8  ,  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Story  obviously  is — If  thy  work  is  of  faith,  then  thou  art  acting  rightly: 
if  it  is  not  of  faith,  it  is  sin. 

ii.  It  was  apparently  on  the  day'  signalized  by  this  bitter  attack,  that 
our  Lord  again,  later  in  the  afternoon,  entered  the  synagogue.  A  man — 
tradition  says  that  he  was  a  stonemason,  maimed  by  an  accident,  who 
had  prayed  Christ  to  heal  him,  that  he  might  not  be  forced  to  beg — was 
sitting  in  the  synagogue.''  His  presence,  and  apparently  the  purpose  of 
His  presence,  was  known  to  all;  and  in  the  chief  seats  were  Scribes, 
Pharisees,  and  Herodians,  whose  jealous,  malignant  gaze  was  fixed  on 
Christ  to  see  what  He  would  do,  that  they  might  accuse  Him.  He  did 
not  leave  them  long  in  doubt.  First  He  bade  the  man  with  the  withered 
hand  get  up  and  stand  out  in  the  midst.  And  then  He  referred  to  the 
adjudication  of  their  own  consciences  the  question  that  was  in  their 
hearts,  formulating  it  only  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  them  its  real  sig- 
nificance. "Is  it  lawful,"  He  asked,  "on  the  Sabbath  days  to  do  good 
or  to  do  evil  ?  to  save  life  (as  I  am  doing),  or  to  kill  (as  you  in  your 
hearts  are  wishing  to  do)?"  There  could  be  but  one  answer  to  such  a 
question,  but  they  were  not  there  either  to  search  for  or  to  tell  the  truth. 
Their  sole  object  was  to  watch  what  He  would  do,  and  found  upon  it  a 
public  charge  before  the  Sanhedrin,  or  if  not,  at  least  to  brand  Him 
thenceforth  with  the  open  stigma  of  a  Sabbath-breaker.  Therefore  they 
met  the  question  by  stolid  and  impotent  silence.  But  He  would  not 
allow  them  to  escape  the  verdict  of  their  own  better  judgment,  and 
therefore  He  justified  Himself  by  their  own  distinct  practice,  no  less 
than  by  their  inability  to  answer.  "  Is  there  one  of  you,"  He  asked, 
"  who,  if  but  a  single  sheep  be  fallen  into  a  water-pit,  will  not  get  hold 
of  it,  and  pull  it  out?  How  much  then  is  a  man  better  than  a  sheep  ?"3 
The  argument  was  unanswerable,  and  their  own  conduct  in  the  matter 
was  undeniable ;  but  still  their  fierce  silence  remained  unbroken.  He 
looked  round    on    them  with    anger ;    a  holy  indignation    burned    in    His 

man  (presumably  for  some  strong  and  valid  reason)  to  work  than  for  the  Jews  to  feast  and  idle  ?  "  It  is 
better  to  plow  than  to  dance,"  says  St.  Augustine  ;  "  they  rest  from  good  work,  they  rest  not  from  idle 
work." 

1  So  it  would  seem  from  Matt.  xii.  9,  10  ;  Mark  iii.  i. 

2  This  tradition  was  preserved  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Nazarenes  and  Ebionites. 

3  In  the  Gemara  it  is  only  allowed  to  full  out  a.  sheep  if  it  be  in  danger  of  drowning  ;  planks,  however, 
might  be  put  in  a  less  extreme  case,  and  food  supplied.  So,  too,  a  man  may  be  only  healed  if  in  peril  of 
death.  Shemaia  and  Abtalion  had  not  been  blamed  for  breaking  the  Sabbath  to  revive  the  snow-covered 
and  benumbed  Hillel.  Stier  suggests  with  much  probability  that  many  exceptions  may  have  been  per- 
mitted because  of  Christ's  words.  Even  the  Pharisees  were  ready  to  tamper  with  Sabbatical  observance 
7. 7/fVi  it  merely  suited  their 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  309 

heart,  glowed  on  His  countenance,  animated  His  gesture,  rang  in  His 
voice,  as  slowly  He  swept  each  hard  upturned  face  with  the  glance  that 
upbraided  them  for  their  malignity  and  meanness,  for  their  ignorance  and 
pride  ;  and  then  suppressing  that  bitter  and  strong  emotion  as  He  turned 
to  do  His  deed  of  mercy,  He  said  to  the  man,  "Stretch  forth  thy 
hand." — Was  not  the  hand  withered?  How  could  he  stretch  it  forth ?\ 
The  word  of  Christ  supplied  the  power  to  fulfill  His  command :  he 
stretched  it  out,  and  it  was  restored  whole  as  the  other. 

Thus  in  every  way  were  His  enemies  foiled — foiled  in  argument, 
shamed  into  silence,  thwarted  even  in  their  attempt  to  find  some  ground 
for  a  criminal  accusation.  For  even  in  healing  the  man,  Christ  had 
done  absolutely  nothing  which  their  worst  hostility  could  misconstrue 
into  a  breach  of  the  Sabbath  law.  He  had  not  touched  the  man  ;  He 
had  not  questioned  him ;  He  had  not  bid  him  exercise  his  recovered 
power  ;  He  had  but  spoken  a  word,  and  not  even  a  Pharisee  could  say 
that  to  speak  a  word  was  an  infraction  of  the  Sabbath,  even  if  the  word 
were  followed  by  miraculous  blessing  !  They  must  have  felt  how  utterly 
they  were  defeated,  but  it  only  kindled  their  rage  the  more.  They  were 
filled  with  madness,'  and  communed  one  with  another  what  they  might 
do  to  Jesus.  Hitherto  they  had  been  enemies  of  the  Herodians.  They 
regarded  them  as  half-apostate  Jews,  who  accepted  the  Roman  domina- 
tion, imitated  heathen  practices,  adopted  Sadducean  opinions,  and 
had  gone  so  far  in  their  flattery  to  the  reigning  house  that  they 
had  blasphemously  tried  to  represent  Herod  the  Great  as  the 
promised  Messiah.  But  now  their  old  enmities  were  reconciled  in 
their  mad  rage  against  a  common  foe.  Something  —  perhaps  the 
fear  felt  by  Antipas,  perhaps  political  suspicion,  perhaps  the  mere 
natural  hatred  of  worldlings  and  renegades  against  the  sweet  and 
noble  doctrines  which  shamed  their  lives — had  recently  added  these 
Herodians  to  the  number  of  the  Saviour's  persecutors.  As  Galilee  was 
the  chief  center  of  Christ's  activity,  the  Jerusalem  Pharisees  were  glad 
to  avail  themselves  of  any  aid  from  the  Galilean  tetrarch  and  his  fol- 
lowers. They  took  common  council  how  they  might  destroy  by  violence 
the  Prophet  whom  they  could  neither  refute  by  reasoning,  nor  circumvent 
by  law. 

This  enmity  of  the  leaders  had  not  yet  estranged  from  Christ  the 
minds  of  the  multitude.     It  made  it  desirable,  however,  for  Him  to  move 

I  Luke  vi.  11. 


3IO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

to  another  place, '  because  He  would  "  neither  strive  nor  cry,  neither 
should  any  man  hear  His  voice  in  the  streets,"  and  the  hour  was  not 
yet  come  when  he  should  "send  forth  judgment  to  victory."  But  before 
His  departure  there  occurred  scenes  yet  more  violent,  and  outbreaks  of 
fury  against  Him  yet  more  marked  and  dangerous.  Every  day  it  became 
more  and  more  necessary  to  show  that  the  rift  between  Himself  and  the 
religious  leaders  of  His  nation  was  deep  and  final;  every  day  it  became 
more  and  more  necessary  to  expose  the  hypocritical  formalism  which 
pervaded  their  doctrines,  and  which  was  but  the  efflorescence  of  a  fatal 
and  deeply-seated  plague. 

6.  His  first  distinct  denunciation  of  the  principles  that  lay  at  the 
very  basis  of  the  Pharisaic  system  was  caused  by  another  combined 
attempt  of  the  Jerusalem  scribes  to  damage  the  position  of  His  disciples." 
On  some  occasion  they  had  observed  that  the  disciples  had  sat  down  to 
a  meal  without  previous  ablutions.  Now  these  ablutions  were  insisted 
upon  with  special  solemnity  by  the  Oral  Tradition.  The  Jews  of  later 
times  related  with  intense  admiration  how  the  Rabbi  Akiba,  when 
imprisoned  and  furnished  with  only  sufficient  water  to  maintain  life,  pre- 
ferred to  die  of  starvation  rather  than  eat  without  the  proper  washings. 
The  Pharisees,  therefore,  coming  up  to  Jesus  as  usual  in  a  body,  ask 
Him,  wilh  a  swelling  sense  of  self-importance  at  the  justice  of  their 
reproach,  "  Why  do  thy  disciples  transgress  the  tradition  of  the  elders  ? 
for  they  wash  not  their  hands  when  they  eat  bread." 

Before  giving  our  Lord's  reply,  St.  Mark  pauses  to  tell  us  that  the 
traditional  ablutions  observed  by  the  Pharisees  and  all  the  leading  Jews 
were  extremely  elaborate  and  numerous.  Before  every  meal,  and  at 
every  return  from  market,  ^  they  washed  "with  the  fist,"''  and  if  no 
water  was  at  hand  a  man  was  obliged  to  go  at  least  four  miles  to  search 
for  it.  Besides  this  there  were  precise  rules  for  the  washing  of  all  cups 
and    sextarii^  and   banquet-couches    {triclinia)  and    brazen    vessels.     The 

1  Matt.  xii.  15  (Isa.  xlii.  2).  It  is  not  necessarily  implied  that  He  left  GaliUt ;  or  if  He  did,  the  events 
which  follow  may  well  have  occurred  before  He  was  fully  aware  of  the  extent  to  which  the  virulence  of  the 
Pharisaic  party  had  carried  them. 

2  Matt.  XV.  1—20  ;  Mark  vii.  i — 23. 

3  Some  render  Mark  vii.  4,  "  And  after  market  they  do  not  eat  (what  they  have  purchased)  until  they 
have  washed  it."     This  is  not  impossible,  but  does  not  seem  likely. 

4  Thoroughly  scrubbing  each  hand   "  with  the  closed  fist." 

5  Mark  vii.  4,  "  sextariuses,"  i.e.,  vessels  holding  about  a  pint^neof  St.  Mark's  Latinisms.  Earthen 
vessels,  if  in  any  way  rendered  ceremonially  unclean,  were  not  washed,  but  broken  (Lev.  xv.  12).  They 
were  so  particular  about  the  sacred  vessels  that  one  day  they  washed  the  golden  candlestick,  and  the 
Saddv.cees  remarked  to  them   "  that  soon  they  would  think  it  necessary  to  wash  the  sun." 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  311 

treatise  ShUlchan-Arilk,  or  "  Table  arranged,"  a  compendium  of  Rab- 
binical usages  drawn  up  by  Josef  Karo  in  1567,  contains  no  less  than 
twenty-six  prayers  by  which  these  washings  were  accompanied.  To 
neglect  them  was  as  bad  as  homicide,  and  involved  a  forfeiture  of  eternal 
life.  And  yet  the  disciples  dared  to  eat  with  "  common "  (that  is,  with 
unwashen)  hands  ! 

As  usual,  our  Lord  at  once  made  common  cause  with  His  disciples, 
and  did  not  leave  them,  in  their  simplicity  and  ignorance,  to  be  overawed 
by  the  attack  of  these  stately  and  sanctimonious  critics.  He  answered 
their  question  by  a  far  graver  one.  "Why,"  He  said,  "do  yo2i  too 
violate  the  commandment  of  God  by  this  '  tradition '  of  yours  ?  For 
God's  command  was  'Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother;'  but 
your  gloss  is,  instead  of  giving  to  father  and  mother,  a  man  may 
simply  give  the  sum  intended  for  their  support  to  the  sacred 
treasury,  and  say,  'It  is  Corban,'  and  then' — he  is  exempt  from  any 
further  burden  in  their  support  !  And  many  such  things  ye  do.  Ye  hypo- 
crites !" — it  was  the  first  time  that  our  Lord  had  thus  sternly  rebuked  them 
— "finely"  do  ye  abolish  and  obliterate  the  commandment  of  God  hy your 
traditions ;  and  well  did  Isaiah  prophesy  of  you,  'This  people  honoreth  me 
with  their  lips,  but  their  heart  is  far  from  me ;  but  in  vain  do  they  worship 
me,  teaching  for  doctrines  the  commandment  of  men.'"^ 

This  was  not  only  a  defense  of  the  disciples — because  it  showed  that 

1  Lightfoot's  note  on  this  passage  is  particularly  valuable.  He  shows  that  our  Lord  is  quoting  a 
regular  formula  which  occurs  often  in  two  Rabbinical  tracts,  both  of  which  deal  with  vows.  In  Matt. 
XV.  6  the  sentence  remains  thus  unfinished  ;  it  is  broken  off  by  aposiopesis,  as  though  our  Lord  shrank 
from  the  disgraceful  inferences  which  such  a  son  would  annex  to  his  words,  and  preferred  to  substitute 
for  them  His  own  stronger  declaration  that  their  iniquitous  diversion  of  natural  charities  into  the  channels 
of  pious  ostentation  would  of  course  undermine  all  parental  authority.  To  say  the  word  "  Corban,"  however 
rashly  and  inconsiderately,  involved  a  vow,  and  some  of  the  Rabbis  had  expressly  taught  that  a  vow  super- 
seded the  necessity  of  obedience  to  the  fifth  commandment.  The  explanation  of  this  and  the  followng 
verse  seems  to  be  that  to  say,  "Be  it  Corban"  was  a  sort  of  imprecation  by  the  use  of  which  a  thing  was 
tabooed  to  any  one  else;  and  that  if  it  had  been  said  to  a  parent  even  in  haste  or  anger,  the  Rabbis  still 
treated  it  as  irrevocable. 

2  Mark  vii.  9,  used  in  strong  irony.  The  Babha  Kama,  or  "  first  gate,"  and  two  following  treatises  of 
the  Mishna  are  on  compensations,  &c.,  and  abound  in  such  traditions  which  supersede  the  Law.  Another 
remarkable  instance  of  doing  away  with  the  commandment  by  tradition  was  the  unanimous  exposition  of 
the  "  law  of  retaliation  "  (Exod.  xxi.  24;  Deut.  xix.  12)  as  meaning  nothing  more  than  a  fine.  I,  of  course, 
see  that  the  dislike  to  the  "  law  of  retaliation  "  was  due  to  a  certain  moral  progress  through  which  the  Greeks 
and  Teutons  also  passed;  but  to  profess  unbounded  and  superstitious  adoration  for  the  mere  dead  letter 
of  a  law,  and  then  to  do  away  with  its  clearest  enactments  by  mere  quibbles  and  fictions,  was  obvious 
hypocrisy. 

3  The  iniquity  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  often  extorted  gifts  of  property  for  Church  purposes  from  the 
ghastly  terrors  of  dying  sinners  was  a  "tradition"  as  bad  as,  perhaps  worse  than,  that  which  Christ 
denounces. 


312  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

they  merely  neglected  a  body  of  regulations '  which  were  in  themselves 
so  opposed  to  the  very  letter  of  the  sacred  law  as,  in  many  cases,  to  be 
more  honored  in  the  breach  than  the  observance — but  it  was  the  open 
rebuke  of  One  who  assumed  a  superior  and  fearless  authority,  and  a  dis- 
tinct reprobation  of  a  system  which  guided  all  the  actions  of  the  Rabbinic 
caste,  and  was  more  reverenced  than  the  Pentateuch  itself.  The  quin- 
tessence of  that  system  was  to  sacrifice  the  spirit  to  the  letter,  which,  apart 
from  that  spirit,  was  more  than  valueless  ;  and  to  sacrifice  the  letter  itself 
to  mere  inferences  from  it  which  were  absolutely  pernicious.  The  Jews 
distinguished  between  the  written  Law  {Torak  Shebekctcb)  and  the  tradi- 
tional Law,  or  "Law  upon  the  lip"  i^Torah  Shebeal  piJi)\  and  the  latter 
was  asserted,  by  its  more  extravagant  votaries,  to  have  been  orally  delivered 
by  God  to  Moses,  and  orally  transmitted  by  him  through  a  succession  of 
elders.  On  it  is  founded  the  Talmud  (or  "doctrine"),  which  consists  of 
the  Mishna  (or  "repetition")  of  the  Law,  and  the  Gemara,  or  "supplement" 
to  it ;  and  so  extravagant  did  the  reverence  for  the  Talmud  become,  that 
it  was  said  to  be,  in  relation  to  the  Law,  as  wine  to  water ;  to  read  the 
Scriptures  was  a  matter  of  indifference,  but  to  read  the  Mishna  was  meri- 
torious, and  to  read  the  Gemara  would  be  to  receive  the  richest 
recompense. '  And  it  was  this  grandiose  system  of  revered  com- 
mentary and  pious  custom  which  Jesus  now  so  completely  discoun- 
tenanced, as  not  only  to  defend  the  neglect  of  it,  but  even  openly 
to  condemn  and  repudiate  its  most  established  principles.  He  thus 
consigned  to  oblivion  and  indifference  the  entire  paraphernalia  of  Haga- 
ddth  ("legends")    and    Halachoth    ("rules"),    which,    though    up    to    that 

I.  As  it  is  to  this  day.  Dr.  Frankl  says  of  the  Rabbinic  castes  at  Jerusalem,  that  "they  never  study 
the  Bible,  and  derive  all  their  knowledge  of  it  from  the  Talmud."  "  He  that  has  learned  the  Scripture,  and 
not  the  Mishna,  is  a  blockhead."  "The  Law  is  like  salt,  the  Mishna  like  pepper,  the  Gemara  like  balmy 
spice."  R.  Menasseh  Ben  Israel  compared  the  Law  to  the  body,  the  Mishna  to  the  soul,  the  Cabbala  to  the 
soul  of  the  soul.  The  Pirke  Abhdth  ordains  that  at  five  a  child  should  study  the  Bible,  at  ten  the  Mishna,  at 
fifteen  the  Gemara.  God  Himself  is  represented  as  studying  the  Talmud,  and  repeating  the  decisions  of 
the  Rabbis!  In  a  passage  of  the  Babha  Metsia,  which  almost  reaches  sublimity  in  its  colossal  sense  of  con- 
viction, the  decisions  of  the  wise  are  upheld  not  only  against  miracles,  but  even  against  a  voice  from  heaven ! 
The  passage  has  been  often  quoted. 

2  They  asserted  that  God  had  taught  Moses  the  Law  by  day,  and  the  Mishna  by  night.  The  Mishna 
was  supposed  to  consist  of  five  main  elements;  ~i.  Traditional  interpretations.  2.  Undisputed  constitu- 
tions. 3.  Accepted  opinions  derived  from  the  thirteen  ways  of  reasoning.  4.  Decrees  of  Prophets  and 
Rabbis.  5.  Legal  precedents.  The  object  of  the  Gemara  was  to  explain  the  Mishna,  (i)  lexically,  (2)  dog- 
matically, {3)  inferentially,  (4)  mystically.  According  to  Aben  Ezra,  R.  Sol.  Jarchi,  R.  Bechai,  Maimonides, 
&c.,  the  Law  was  the  "Statutes,"  and  the  Oral  Law  the  "judgments"  of  Deut.  iv.  14.  R.  Josh.  Ben  Levi 
said  that  in  Exod.  xxiv.  12  "the  Tables"  meant  the  Decalogue;  "the  Law,"  the  Pentateuch;  "  command- 
ments," the  Mishna;  "which  I  have  written,"  the  Prophets  and  Hagiographa;  and  "  that  thou  mightest 
teach  them,"  the  Gemara. 


GATHERING  OPPOSITION.  313 

period  it  had  not  been  committed  to  writing,  was  yet  devoutly  cherished 
in  the  memory  of  the  learned,  and  constituted  the  very  treasury  of  Rab- 
binic wisdom. 

Nor  was  this  all  :  not  content  with  shattering  the  very  bases  of  their 
external  religion.  He  even  taught  to  the  multitude  doctrines  which  would 
undermine  their  entire  authority — doctrines  which  would  tend  to  bring 
their  vaunted  wisdom  into  utter  discredit.  The  supremacy  of  His  disap- 
proval was  in  exact  proportion  to  the  boundlessness  of  their  own  arro- 
gant self-assertion  ;  and  turning  away  from  them  as  though  they  were 
hopeless.  He  summoned  the  multitude,  whom  they  had  trained  to  look 
up    to  them  as  little  gods,  and  spoke  these  short  and  weighty  words : 

"  Hear  me,  all  of  you,  and  understand  !  Not  that  which  goeth  into 
the  mouth  defileth  the  man  ;  but  that  which  cometh  out  of  the  mouth, 
tJiat  defileth  a  man."" 

The  Pharisees  were  bitterly  offended  by  this  saying,  as  well  indeed 
they  might  be.  Condemnatory  as  it  was  of  the  too  common  sacerdojal 
infatuation  for  all  that  is  merely  ceremonial,  that  utterance  of  Jesus 
should  have  been  the  final  death-knell  of  that  superfluity  of  voluntary 
ceremonialism.  His  disciples  were  not  slow  to  inform  Him  of  the  indig- 
nation which  His  words  had  caused,  for  they  probably  retained  a  large 
share  of  the  popular  awe  for  the  leading  sect.  But  the  reply  of  Jesus 
was  an  expression  of  calm  indifference  to  earthly  judgment,  a  reference 
of  all  worth  to  the  sole  judgment  of  God  as  shown  in  the  slow  ripening 
of  events.  "  Every  plant  which  my  Heavenly  Father  hath  not  planted 
shall  be  rooted  up.  Let  them  alone.  They  be  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  ; 
and  if  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  shall  they  not  both  fall  into  the  ditch?" 

A  little  later,  when  they  were  indoors  and  alone,  Peter  ventured  to 
ask  for  an  explanation  of  the  words  which  He  had  uttered  so  emphati- 
cally to  the  multitude.  Jesus  gently  blamed  the  want  of  comprehension 
among  His  Apostles,  but  showed  them,  in  teaching  of  deep  significance, 
that  man's  food  does  but  affect  his  material  structure,  and  does  not  enter 
into  his  heart,  or  touch  his  real  being  ;  but  that  "  from  within,  out  of 
the  heart  of  men,  proceed  evil  thoughts,  adulteries,  fornications,  murders, 
theft,  covetousness,  wickedness,  deceit,  lasciviousness,  an  evil  eye,  blas- 
phemy, pride,  foolishness." 

I  There  is  a  singular  and  striking  parallel  to  these  words  in  Philo.  "There  enter  into  the  mouth," 
he  says,  expanding  a  saying  of  Plato,  "  meats  and  drinks,  corruptible  nourishment  of  a  corruptible 
body  ;  but  there  go  forth  from  it  words,  immortal  laws  of  an  immortal  soul,  by  means  of  which  is 
governed  the  reasonable  life." 


314  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Evil  thoughts — like  one  tiny  rill  of  evil,  and  then  the  burst  of  all 
that  black,  overwhelming  torrent ! 

"  These  are  the  things  which  defile  a  man  ;  but  to  eat  with  unwashen 
hands  defileth  not  a  man."  ' 

I  The  only  possible  explanation  of  this  passage  is:  "  This  He  said  .  .  .  making  all  meats  clean." 
This  rendering  was  pointed  out  by  St.  Chrysostom  in  his  Commentary  on  St.  Matthew,  and  noticed 
by  Mr.  Field  many  years  ago  in  his  Commentary  on  St.  Chrysostom,  but  has  since  been  generally 
overlooked.  Its  revival  and  justification  make  this  the  most  memorable  text  in  the  entire  Gospels  on 
the  great  question  of  Christ's  attitude  towards  the  Mosaic  law. 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 


DEEPENING     OPPOSITION. 


^^g->>C 


'  If  he  be  ignoble,  if  inglorious,  if  dishonored,  he  shall  be  my  Christ.' 


HERE  was  to  be  one  more  day  of  opposition — 
more  bitter,  more  dangerous,  more  personal, 
more  implacable — one  day  of  open  and  final 
rupture  between  Jesus  and  the  Pharisaic  spies 
from  Jerusalem — before  He  yielded  for  a  time 
to  the  deadly  hatred  of  His  enemies,  and  re- 
tired to  find  in  heathen  countries  the  rest  which 
He  could  find  no  longer  in  the  rich  fields  and 
on  the  green  hills  of  Gennesareth.  There  were 
but  few  days  of  His  earthly  life  which  passed 
through  a  series  of  more  heart-shaking  agita- 
tions than  the  one  that  we  shall  now  describe.' 

Jesus  was  engaged  in  solitary  prayer,  probably  at 
early  dawn,  and  in  one  of  the  towns  which  formed  the 
chief  theater  of  His  Galilean  ministry.  While  they  saw 
Him  standing  there  with  His  eyes  uplifted  to  heaven— for  standing,  not 
kneeling,  was  and  is  the  common  Oriental  attitude  in  prayer— the  dis- 
ciples remained  at  a  reverent  distance  ;  but  when  His  orisons  were  over, 
they  came  to  Him  with  the  natural  entreaty  that  He  would  teach  them 
to  pray,  as  John  also  taught  his  disciples.  He  at  once  granted  their 
request,  and  taught  them  that  short  and  perfect  petition  which  has 
thenceforth  been  the  choicest  heritage  of  every  Christian  liturgy,  and  the 
model  on  which  all  our  best  and  most  acceptable  prayers  are  formed. 
He  had,  indeed,  already  used  it  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  but  we 
may  be  deeply  thankful  that    for    the    sake    of    His    asking  disciples  He 

I  It  seems  clear  from  the  order  in  which  these  scenes  are  narrated  in  Matt.  xii.  22,  seqq. ;  Mark  iii.  11, 
seqq.,  that  they  took  place  in  Galilee,  and  if  so  they  cannot  well  be  assigned  to  any  other  period  than  the 
present.  In  St.  Luke  they  occur  in  the  great  episode  (ix.  51— xviii.  34);  but  the  hypothesis  that  this  epi- 
sode narrates  the  incidents  of  one  of  three  journeys  only  is  not  tenable,  and  the  order  suggested  by  the 
other  Evangelists  seems  here  to  be  the  more  probable.  The  only  note  of  time  used  by  St.  Luke  is  the  very 
vaguest  of  all,  "And  it  came  to  pass  ; "  and  the  note  of  place  is  equally  so,  "  in  a  certain  place." 


3l6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

here  brought  it  into  greater  and  more  separate  prominence.  Some  of 
the  separate  clauses  may  already  have  existed,  at  least  in  germ,  among 
the  Jewish  forms  of  prayer,  since  they  resemble  expressions  which  are 
found  in  the  Talmud,  and  which  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  were 
borrowed  from  Christians.  But  never  before  had  all  that  was  best  and 
purest  in  a  nation's  prayers  been  thus  collected  into  one  noble  and 
incomparable  petition — a  petition  which  combines  all  that  the  heart  of 
man,  taught  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  had  found  most  needful  for  the  satis- 
faction of  its  truest  aspirations.  In  the  mingled  love  and  reverence  with 
which  it  teaches  us  to  approach  our  Father  in  heaven — in  the  spirituality 
with  which  it  leads  us  to  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  right- 
eousness— in  the  spirit  of  universal  charity  and  forgiveness  which  it 
inculcates — in  that  plural  form  throughout  it,  which  is  meant  to  show  us 
that  selfishness  must  be  absolutely  and  for  ever  excluded  from  our  peti- 
tions, and  that  no  man  can  come  to  God  as  his  Father  without  acknowl- 
edging that  his  worst  enemies  are  also  God's  children — in  the  fact  that 
of  its  seven  petitions,  one,  and  one  only,  is  for  any  earthly  blessing,  and 
even  that  one  is  only  for  earthly  blessings  in  their  simplest  form — in  the 
manner  in  which  it  discountenances  all  the  vain  repetitions  and  extrava- 
gant self-tortures  with  which  so  many  fanatic  worshippers  have  believed 
that  God  could  be  propitiated — even  in  that  exquisite  brevity  which 
shows  us  how  little  God  desires  that  prayer  should  be  made  a  burden 
and  weariness — it  is,  indeed,  what  the  Fathers  have  called  it,  a  breviarmm 
Evangclit — the  pearl  of  prayers. 

Not  less  divine  were  the  earnest  and  simple  words  which  followed 
it,  and  which  taught  the  disciples  that  men  ought  always  to  pray  and 
not  to  faint,  since,  if  importunity  prevails  over  the  selfishness  of  man, 
earnestness  must  be  all-powerful  with  the  righteousness  of  God.  Jesus 
impressed  upon  them  the  lesson  that  if  human  affection  can  be  trusted 
to  give  only  useful  and  kindly  gifts,  the  love  of  the  Great  Father  who 
loves  us  all  will,  much  more  certainly,  give  His  best  and  highest  gift — 
even  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit — to  all  that   ask  Him. 

And  with  what  exquisite  yet  vivid  graciousness  are  these  great  lessons 
inculcated  !  Had  they  been  delivered  in  the  dull,  dry,  didactic  style  of 
most  moral  teaching,  how  could  they  have  t(juched  the  hearts,  or  warmed 
the  imaginations,  or  fixed  themselves  indelibly  upon  the  memories  of 
those  who  heard  them  ?  But  instead  of  being  clothed  in  scholastic 
pedantisms,  they  were    conveyed    in    a    little    tale    founded    on    the  most 


DEEPENING    OPPOSITION.  317 

commonplace  incidents  of  daily  life,  and  of  a  daily  life  full  of  simplicity 
and  poverty.  Journeying  at  night  to  avoid  the  burning  heat,  a  man  ar- 
rives at  a  friend's  house.  The  host  is  poor,  and  has  nothing  for  him ; 
yet,  because  even  at  that  late  hour  he  will  not  neglect  the  duties  of 
hospitality,  he  gets  up,  and  goes  to  the  house  of  another  friend  to  bor- 
row three  loaves.  But  this  other  is  in  bed  ;  his  little  children  are  with 
him  ;  his  house  is  locked  and  barred.  To  the  earnest  entreaty  he  answers 
crossly  and  roughly'  from  within,  "Trouble  me  not."  But  his  friend 
knows  that  he  has  come  on  a  good  errand,  and  he  persists  in  knocking, 
till  at  last,  not  from  kind  motives,  but  because  of  his  pertinacity,''  the 
man  gets  up  and  gives  him  all  that  he  requires.  "  Even  so,"  it  has  been 
beautifully  observed,  "when  the  heart  which  has  been  away  on  a  journey, 
suddenly  at  midnight  {i.e.,  the  time  of  greatest  darkness  and  distress)  re- 
turns home  to  us— that  is,  comes  to  itself  and  feels  hunger — and  we 
have  nothing  wherewith  to  satisfy  it,  God  requires  of  us  bold,  importunate 
faith."  If  such  persistency  conquers  the  reluctance  of  ungracious  man, 
how  much  more  shall  it  prevail  with  One  who  loves  us  better  than  we 
ourselves,  and  who  is  even  more  ready  to  hear  than  we  to  pray  ! 

It  has  been  well  observed  that  the  narrative  of  the  life  of  Christ  on 
earth  is  full  of  lights  and  shadows — one  brief  period,  or  even  one  day, 
starting  at  times  into  strong  relief,  while  at  other  times  whole  periods 
are  passed  over  in  unbroken  silence.  But  we  forget — and  if  we  bear 
this  in  mind,  there  will  be  nothing  to  startle  us  in  this  phenomenon  of 
the  Gospel  record — we  forget  how  large  and  how  necessary  a  portion  of 
His  work  it  was  to  teach  and  train  His  immediate  Apostles  for  the 
future  conversion  of  the  world.  When  we  compare  what  the  Apostles 
were  when  Jesus  called  them — simple  and  noble  indeed,  but  ignorant, 
and  timid,  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe — with  what  they  became  when 
He  had  departed  from  them,  and  shed  the  gift  of  His  Holy  Spirit  into 
their  hearts,  then  we  shall  see  how  little  intermission  there  could  have 
been  in  His  beneficent  activity,  even  during  the  periods  in  which  His 
discourses  were  delivered  to  those  only  who  lived  in  the  very  light  of 
His  divine  personality.  Blessed  indeed  were  they  above  kings  and 
prophets,  blessed  beyond  all  who  have  ever  lived  in  the  richness  of  their 
privilege,  since  they  could  share  His  inmost  thoughts,  and  watch  in  all 
its  angelic  sweetness  and  simplicity  the    daily  spectacle  of   those  "  sinless 

1  He  does  not  return  the  greeting,  "  Friend  ' ;  the  expression,  "  Don't  fash  me,"  is  an   impatient  one  ■ 
the  door  "has  been  shut  for  the  night  ;"  "  I  can't,"  meaning  "  I  won't." 

2  ■' Shamelessness,"  "  unblushing  persistence." 


3i8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

years."  But  if  this  blessing  was  specially  accorded  to  them,  it  was  not 
for  their  own  sakes,  but  for  the  sake  of  that  world  which  it  was  their 
mission  to  elevate  from  despair  and  wickedness  into  purity  and  sober- 
mindedness  and  truth — for  the  sake  of  those  holy  hearts  who  were 
henceforth  to  enjoy  a  Presence  nearer,  though  .spiritual,  than  if,  with 
the  Apostles,  they  could  have  climbed  with  Him  the  lonely  hills,  or 
walked  beside  Him  as  He  paced  at  evening  beside  the  limpid  lake. 

The  day  which  had  begun  with  that  lesson  of  loving  and  confiding 
prayer  was  not  destined  to  proceed  thus  calmly.  Fczv  days  of  His  life 
during  these  years  can  have  passed  without  His  being  brought  into  dis- 
tressing contact  with  the  evidences  of  human  sin  and  human  suffering ; 
but  on  this  day  the  spectacle  was  brought  before  Him  in  its  wildest  and 
most  terrible  form.  A  man  blind  and  dumb  and  mad,  from  those  strange 
unaccountable  influences  which  the  universal  belief  attributed  to  demoniac 
possession,  was  brought  before  Him.  Jesus  would  not  leave  him  a  help- 
less victim  to  the  powers  of  evil.  By  His  look  and  by  His  word  He 
released  the  miserable  sufferer  from  the  horrible  oppression — calmed, 
healed,  restored  him — "  insomuch  that  the  blind  and  dumb  both  spake 
and  saw." 

It  appears  from  our  Lord's  own  subsequent  words  that  there  existed 
among  the  Jews  certain  forms  of  exorcism,'  which  to  a  certain  extent, 
at  any  rate,  were  efificacious  ;  but  there  are  traces  that  the  cures  so 
effected  were  only  attempted  in  milder  and  simpler  cases.  The  dissolu- 
tion of  so  hideous  a  spell  as  that  which  had  bound  this  man — the  power 
to  pour  light  on  the  filmed  eyeball,  and  to  restore  speech  to  the  cramped 
tongue,  and  intelligence  to  the  bewildered  soul — was  something  that  the 
people  had  never  witnessed.  The  miracle  produced  a  thrill  of  astonish- 
ment, a  burst  of  unconcealed  admiration.  For  the  first  time  they  openly 
debated  whether  He  who  had  such  power  could  be  any  other  than  their 
expected  Deliverer.  "Can  this  man,"  they  incredulously  asked,  "can  he  be 
the  Son  of  David  ?" 

His  enemies  could  not  deny  that  a  great  miracle  had  been  performed, 
and  since  it  did  not  convert,  it  only  hardened  and  maddened  them.  But 
how  could  they  dissipate  the  deep  impression  which  it  had  made  on  the 
minds  of  the  amazed  spectators  ?  The  Scribes  who  came  from 
Jerusalem,  more  astute  and  ready  than  their  simple  Galilean  brethren, 
at  once  invented  a  ready    device    for   this   purpose.     "  This    fellow    hath 

I  Cf.  Acts  xix.  13. 


DEEPENING   OPPOSITION.  319 

Beelzebub  " — such  was  their  notable  and  insolent  solution  of  the  difficulty 
— "and  it  is  only  by  the  prince  of  the  devils  that  he  casteth  out  the 
devils."  Strange  that  the  ready  answer  did  not  spring  to  every  lip,  as 
it  did  afterwards  to  the  lips  of  some  who  heard  the  same  charge  brought 
against  Him  in  Jerusalem,  "These  are  not  the  words  of  one  that  hath 
a  devil."  But  the  people  of  Galilee  were  credulous  and  ignorant ;  these 
grave  and  reverend  inquisitors  from  the  Holy  City  possessed  an  immense 
and  hereditary  ascendency  over  their  simple  understandings,  and,  offended 
as  they  had  been  more  than  once  by  the  words  of  Jesus,  their  whole 
minds  were  bewildered  with  a  doubt.  The  awfulness  of  His  personal 
ascendency — the  felt  presence,  even  amid  His  tenderest  condescensions, 
of  something  more  than  human — His  power  of  reading  the  thoughts — 
the  ceaseless  and  sleepless  energy  of  His  beneficence — the  strange  terror 
which  He  inspired  in  the  poor  demoniacs — the  speech  which  sometimes 
rose  into  impassioned  energy  of  denunciation,  and  sometimes,  by  its  soft- 
ness and  beauty,  held  them  hushed  as  infants  at  the  mother's  breast — 
the  revulsion  of  their  unbelieving  hearts  against  that  new  world  of  fears 
and  hopes  which  He  preached  to  them  as  the  kingdom  of  God — in  a 
word,  the  shuddering  sense  that  in  some  way  His  mere  look  and  pres- 
ence placed  them  in  a  nearer  relation  than  they  had  ever  been  before 
with  the  Unseen  World — all  this,  as  it  had  not  prepared  them  to  accept 
the  truth,  tended  from  the  first  to  leave  them  the  ready  victims  of  in- 
solent, blasphemous,  and    authoritative  falsehood. 

And  therefore,  in  a  few  calm  words,  Jesus  shattered  the  hideous 
sophism  to  atoms.  He  showed  them  the  gross  absurdity  of  supposing 
that  Satan  could  be  his  own  enemy.  Using  an  irresistible  ai'giinientum 
ad  hominem,  He  convicted  them  by  an  appeal  to  the  exorcisms  so  freely, 
but  almost  ineffectually,  professed  by  themselves  and  their  pupils.  And 
when  he  had  thus  showed  that  the  power  which  He  exercised  must  be 
at  once  superior  to  Satan  and  contrary  to  Satan,  and  must  therefore  be 
spiritual  and  divine,  He  warned  them  of  the  awful  sinfulness  and  peril 
of  this  their  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  and  how  nearly 
it  bordered  on  the  verge  of  that  sin  which  alone,  of  all  sins,  could  neither 
here  nor  hereafter  be  forgiven.  And  then,  after  these  dim  and  mysterious 
warnings,  speaking  to  them  in  language  of  yet  plainer  significance,  He 
turned  the  light  of  truth  into  their  raging  and  hypocritical  hearts,  and 
showed  them  how  this  Dead  Sea  fruit  of  falsehood  and  calumny  could 
only  spring  from  roots  and    fibers    of    hidden   bitterness  ;    how  only  from 


320  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

evil  treasures  hid  deep  in  darkness,  where  the  very  source  of  light  was 
quenched,  could  be  produced  these  dark  imaginings  of  their  serpen- 
tine malignity.  '  Lastly,  and  with  a  note  of  warning  which  has  never 
since  ceased  to  vibrate,  He  warned  them  that  the  words  of  man  reveal 
the  true  nature  of  the  heart  within,  and  that  for  those,  as  for  all  other 
false  and  lightly  uttered  words  of  idle  wickedness,  they  should  give 
account  at  the  last  day.^  The  weight  and  majesty  of  these  words — the 
awful  solemnity  of  the  admonition  which  they  conveyed — seem  for  at  ime 
to  have  reduced  the  Pharisees  to  silence,  and  to  have  checked  the  reitera- 
tion of  their  absurd  and  audacious  blasphemy.  And  in  the  hush  that 
ensued  some  woman  of  the  company,  in  an  uncontrollable  enthusiasm  of 
admiration — accustomed  indeed  to  reverence  these  long-robed  Pharisees, 
with  their  fringes  and  phylacteries,  but  feeling  to  the  depth  of  her  heart 
on  how  lofty  a  height  above  them  the  Speaker  stood — exclaimed  to  Him 
in  a  loud  voice, ^  so  that  all  could  hear — 

"  Blessed  is  the  womb  that  bare  Thee,  and  the  breasts  that  thou 
hast  sucked." 

"Yea" — or  as  we  may  render  it — "Nay,  rather"  He  answered, 
"blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  Word  of  God,  and  keep  it." 

The  woman,  with  all  the  deep  and  passionate  affection  of  her  sex, 
had  cried,  How  blest  must  be  the  mother  of  such  a  Son  !  and  blessed 
indeed  that  mother  was,  and  blessed  was  the  fruit  of  her  womb — blessed 
she  was  among  women,  and  blessed  because  she  believed:''  yet  hers  was 
no  exclusive  blessedness  ;  there  is  a  blessedness  yet  deeper  and  loftier, 
the  blessedness  of  obedience  to  the  Word  of  God.  "  How  many  women," 
says  St.  Chrysostom,  "have  blessed  that  Holy  Virgin,  and  desired  to  be 
such  a  mother  as  she  was  !  What  hinders  them  ?  Christ  has  made  for 
us  a  wide  way  to  this  happiness,  and  not  only  women,  but  men  may 
tread  it— the  way  of  obedience  ;  this  it  is  which  makes  such  a  mother, 
not  the  throes  of  parturition." 

But  the  Pharisees,  though  baffled  for  a  moment,  did  not  intend  to 
leave  Jesus  long  in  peace.  He  had  spoken  to  them  in  language  of  lofty 
warning,  nay,  even  of  stern  rebuke — to  thcjn,  the  leaders  and  religious 
teachers  of  His  time  and  country.  What  gave  such  boldness  to  one — a 
mere  "empty  cistern,"  a  mere  am  ha-arets — who    had    but    just    emerged 

1  Matt.  xii.  34. 

2  Compare  Matt.  xii.  25—37  ;  Mark  iii.  22 — 30  ;  Luke  xi.  17 — 36. 

3  Luke  xi.  27. 

4  Luke  i   42 — 45. 


DEEPENING   OPPOSITION.  321 

from  the  obscure  and  ignorant  labors  of  a  provincial  artisan  ?  how  did 
He  dare  thus  to  address  them?  Let  Him  at  least  show  them  some 
sign — some  sign  from  heaven,  no  mere  exorcism  or  act  of  healing,  but 
some  great,  indisputable,  decisive  sign  of  His  authority.  "  Master,  we 
would  see  a  sign  from  Thee." 

It  was  the  old  question  which  had  assailed  Him  at  His  very  earliest 
ministry,  "  What  sign  showest  Thou  unto  us,  seeing  that  Thou  doest 
these  things?"' 

To  such  appeals,  made  only  to  insult  and  tempt — made  by  men  who, 
unconvinced  and  unsoftened,  had  just  seen  a  mighty  sign,  and  had  at- 
tributed it  at  once  without  a  blush  to  demoniac  agency- — made,  not  from 
hearts  of  faith,  but  out  of  curiosity,  and  hatred,  and  unbelief — Jesus  al- 
ways turned  a  deaf  ear.  The  Divine  does  not  condescend  to  limit  the 
display  of  its  powers  by  the  conditions  of  finite  criticism,  nor  is  it  con- 
formable" to  the  council  of  God  to  effect  the  conversion  of  human  souls 
by  their  mere  astonishment  at  external  signs.  Had  Jesus  given  them  a 
sign  from  heaven,  is  it  likely  that  it  would  have  produced  any  effect  on 
the  spiritual  children  of  ancestors  who,  according  to  their  own  accepted 
history,  in  the  very  sight,  nay,  under  the  very  precipices  of  the  burning 
hill,  had  sat  down  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  risen  up  to  play  ?  Would  it 
have  had  any  permanent  significance  for  the  moral  heirs  of  those  who 
were  taunted  by  their  own  prophets  with  having  taken  up  the  tabernacles 
of  Moloch,  and  the  star  of  their  god  Remphan,  though  they  were  guided 
by  the  fiery  pillar,  and  quenched  their  thirst  from  the  smitten  rock  ? 
Signs  they  had  seen  and  wonders  in  abundance,  and  now  they  were  see- 
ing the  highest  sign  of  a  Sinless  Life,  and  yet  they  did  but  rebel  and 
blaspheme  the  more.  No  sign  should  be  given,  then,  save  in  prophecies 
which  they  could  not  understand.  "  That  evil  and  adulterous  genera- 
tion," He  exclaimed,  turning  to  the  densely  crowded  multitude,  "should 
have  no  sign  save  the  sign  of  Jonah  the  prophet.  Saved  after  a  day  and 
night  amid  the  dark  and  tempestuous  seas,  he  had  been  a  sign  to  the 
Ninevites;  so  should  the  Son  of  Man  be  saved  from  the  heart  of  the 
earth. ^  And  those  men  of  Nineveh,  who  repented  at  the  preaching  of 
Jonah,  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  who  came  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  hear  the  wisdom  of    Solomon,  should    alike    rise  up  in    the    judgment 

1  John  ii.  18. 

2  The  "three  days  and  three  nights"  of  Matt.  xii.  40  means  little  more  than  from  Friday  evening  to 
Sunday  morning.  This  strange  Hebrew  idiom  has  caused  needless  difficulties.  Cf.  i  Sam.  .nx.\.  12.  13  ; 
2  Chron.  x.  5,  12  ;  Deut.  xiv.  28;  xxvi.  12. 


322  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  condemn  a  generation  that  despised  and  rejected  one  greater  than 
Solomon  or  than  Jonah.  For  that  generation  had  received  every  bless- 
ing :  by  the  Babylonian  captivity,  by  the  Maccabean  revival,  by  the  wise 
and  noble  rule  of  the  Asmonean  princes,  recently  by  the  preaching  of 
John,  the  evil  spirit  of  idolatry  and  rebellion  which  distempered  their 
fathers  had  been  cast  out  of  them  ;  its  old  abode  had  been  swept  and 
garnished  by  the  proprieties  of  Pharisees  and  the  scrupulosities  of  Scribes  ; 
but,  alas  !  no  good  spirit  had  been  invited  to  occupy  the  empty  shrine, 
and  now  the  old  unclean  possessor  had  returned  with  seven  spirits  more 
wicked  than  himself,  and  their  last  state  was  worse  than  the  first. 

His  discourse  was  broken  at  this  point  by  a  sudden  interruption.' 
News  had  again  reached  His  family  that  He  was  surrounded  by  a 
dense  throng,  and  was  speaking  words  more  strange  and  terrible  than 
ever  He  had  been  known  to  utter;  above  all,  that  He  had  repudiated 
with  open  scorn,  and  denounced  with  uncompromising  indignation,  the 
great  teachers  who  had  been  expressly  sent  from  Jerusalem  to  watch 
His  words.  Alarm  seized  them;  perhaps  their  informant  had  whispered 
to  them  the  dread  calumny  which  had  thus  called  forth  His  stern  rebukes. 
From  the  little  which  we  can  learn  of  His  brethren,  we  infer  that  they 
were  Hebrews  of  the  Hebrews,  and  likely  to  be  intensely  influenced  by 
Rabbinical  and  sacerdotal  authority  ;  as  yet,  too,  they  either  did  not  be- 
lieve on  Him,  or  regarded  His  claims  in  a  very  imperfect  light.  Is  not 
the  time  again  come  for  them  to  interfere  ?  can  they  not  save  Jesus,  on 
whom  they  looked  as  their  Jesus,  from  Himself?  can  they  not  exercise 
over  Him  such  influence  as  shall  save  Him  from  the  deadly  perils  to 
which  His  present  teaching  would  obviously  expose  Him?  can  they  not 
use  towards  Him  such  gentle  control  as  should  hurry  Him  away  for  a 
time  into  some  region  of  secrecy  and  safety  ?  They  could  not,  indeed, 
reach  Him  in  the  crowd,  but  they  could  get  some  one  to  call  His  atten- 
tion to  their  presence.  Suddenly  He  is  informed  by  one  of  His  audi- 
ence—" Behold,  Thy  mother  and  Thy  brethren  stand  without,  desiring 
to*  speak  with  Thee."  Alas  !  had  they  not  yet  learnt  that  if  they  would 
not  enter,  their  sole  right  place  was  to  stand  without?  that  His  hour 
was  now  come  to  pass  far  beyond  the  circle  of  mere  human  relationship, 
infinitely  above  the  control  of  human  brethren  ?  Must  their  bold,  intru- 
sive spirit  receive  one  more  check  ?  It  was  even  so  ;  but  the  check 
should  be  given  gently,  and  so  as    to    be    an    infinite  comfort  to  others. 

I   Malt.  xii.  46. 


DEEPENING   OPPOSITION.  323 

"Who  is  My  mother?"  He  said  to  the  man  who  had  spoken,  "and  who 
are  My  brethren?"  And  then  stretching  forth  His  hand  towards  His 
disciples,  He  said,  "  Behold  My  mother  and  My  brethren  !  For  whoso- 
ever shall  do  the  will  of  My  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  the  same  is  My 
brother,  and  sister,  and  mother ! " 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 


THE     DAY     OF    CONFLICT. 


-^-o^ 


'  Near  the  sword,  near  God. 


S>^ 

X^^^' 


^^ 


c^^ 


TO  this  point  the  events  of  this  great  day  had 
been  sufficiently  agitating,  but  they  were  followed 
by  circumstances  yet  more  painful  and  exciting. 
The  time  for  the  mid-day  meal  had  arrived, 
and  a  Pharisee  asked  Him  to  come  and  lunch  at 
his  house."  There  was  extremely  little  hospitality 
or  courtesy  in  the  invitation.  If  not  offered  in 
downright  hostility  and  bad  faith — as  we  know 
was  the  case  with  similar  Parisaic  invitations — 
its  motive  at  the  best  was  but  curiosity  to  see 
more  of  the  new  Teacher,  or  a  prompting  of 
vanity  to  patronize  so  prominent  a  guest.  And 
Jesus,  on  entering,  found  Himself,  not  among 
"  publicans   and    sinners,  where    He    could  soothe, 

and  teach,  and  bless^not  among  the  poor  to  whom  He  could  preach 
the  kingdom  of  Heaven — not  among  friends  and  disciples  who  listened 
with  deep  and  loving  reverence  to  His  words — but  among  the  cold,  hard, 
threatening  faces,  the  sneers  and  frowns,  of  haughty  rivals  and  open 
enemies.  The  Apostles  do  not  seem  to  have  been  invited.  There  was 
no  sympathy  of  a  Thomas  to  sustain  Him,  no  gentleness  of  a  Nathanael 
to  encourage  Him,  no  ardor  of  a  Peter  to  defend,  no  beloved  John  to 
lean  his  head  upon  His  breast.  Scribe,  Lawyer,  and  Pharisee,  the  guests 
ostentatiously  performed  their  artistic  ablutions,  and  then — each  with  ex- 
treme regard  for  his  own  precedence — swept  to  their  places  at  the  board. 
With  no  such  elaborate  and  fantastic  ceremonies,  Jesus,  as  soon  as  He 
entered,  reclined  at  the  table.""  It  was  a  short  and  a  trivial  meal,  and 
outside  thronged  the    dense    multitude,  hungering    still    and  thirsting  for 

1  Not  "  to  dine  with  him,"  but  rather  "  lunch  at  his  house."     The  morning  meal  was  a  slight  repast 
about  twelve  in  the  day,  more  like  French  difjcHner  than  the  English  "  breakfast." 

2  Luke  xi.  37,  "  Entering  He  at  once  reclined." 


THE  DAY  OF  CONFLICT.  325 

the  words  of  eternal  life.  He  did  not  choose,  therefore,  to  create 
idle  delays  and  countenance  a  needless  ritualism  by  washings,  which  at 
that  moment  happened  to  be  quite  superfluous,  and  to  which  a  foolish 
and  pseudo-religious  importance  was  attached. 

Instantly  the  supercilious  astonishment  of  the  host  expressed  itself 
in  his  countenance  ;  and,  doubtless,  the  lifted  eyebrows  and  depreciating 
gestures  of  those  unsympathizing  guests  showed  as  much  as  they  dared 
to  show  of  their  disapproval  and  contempt.  They  were  forgetting  utterly 
who  He  was,  and  what  He  had  done.  Spies  and  calumniators  from  the 
first,  they  were  now  debasing  even  their  pretentious  and  patronizing 
hospitality  into  fresh  opportunity  for  treacherous  conspiracy.  The .  time 
was  come  for  yet  plainer  language,  for  yet  more  unmeasured  indignation ; 
and  He  did  not  spare  them.  He  exposed,  in  words  which  were  no 
parables  and  could  not  be  mistaken,  the  extent  to  which  their  outward 
cleanliness  was  but  the  thin  film  which  covered  their  inward  wickedness 
and  greed.  He  denounced  their  contemptible  scrupulosity  in  the  tithing 
of  potherbs,  their  flagrant  neglect  of  essential  virtues  ;  the  cant,  the 
ambition,  the  publicity,  the  ostentation  of  their  outward  orthodoxy,  the 
deathful  corruption  of  their  inmost  hearts.  Hidden  graves  were  they 
over  which  men  walk,  and,  without  knowing  it,  become  defiled. 

And  at  this  point,  one  of  the  lawyers  who  were  present— some 
learned  professor,  some  orthodox  Masoret ' — ventures  to  interrupt  the 
majestic  torrent  of  His  rebuke.  He  had,  perhaps,  imagined  that  the 
youthful  Prophet  of  Nazareth — He  who  was  so  meek  and  lowly  of  heart 
— He  whose  words  among  the  multitude  had  hitherto  breathed  the  spirit 
of  such  infinite  tenderness — was  too  gentle,  too  loving,  to  be  in  earnest. 
He  thought,  perhaps,  that  a  word  of  interpolation  might  check  the  rush- 
ing storm  of  His  awakened  wrath.  He  had  not  yet  learnt  that  no  strong 
or  great  character  can  be  devoid  of  the  element  of  holy  anger.  And  so, 
ignorant  of  all  that  was  passing  in  the  Saviour's  mind,  amazed  that 
people  of  such  high  distinction  could  be  thus  plainly  and  severely  dealt 
with,  he  murmured  in  deprecatory  tones,  "  Master,  thus  saying,  thou 
reproachest  us  also  !  " 

Yes,  He  reproached  them  also  :  they,  too,  heaped  on  the  shoulders 
of  others  the  burdens  which  themselves  refused  to  bear ;  they,  too,  built 
the  sepulchers  of  the  prophets  whom  their  sins  had  slain  ;    they,  too,  set 

1  Of  course  the   mass  of  textual  and  other  criticisms  which   form    the   Masora  had   existed  for  ages 
before  they  were  collected  or  reduced  to  writing. 


326  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

their  backs  against  the  door  of  knowledge,  and  held  the  key,  so  that 
none  could  enter  in  ;  on  them  too,  as  on  all  that  guilty  generation,  should 
come  the  blood  ef  all  the  prophets,  from  the  blood  of  Abel  to  the  blood 
of  Zacharias,  who  perished  between  the  altar  and  the  Temple. ' 

The  same  discourse,  but  yet  fuller  and  more  terrible,  was  subse- 
quently uttered  by  Jesus  in  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem  in  the  last  great 
week  of  His  life  on  earth  ;  but  thus  did  He,  on  this  occasion,  hurl  down 
upon  them  from  the  heaven  of  His  moral  superiority  the  first  heart- 
scathing  lightnings  of  His  seven-times-uttered  woe.^  They  thought,  per- 
haps, that  He  would  have  been  deceived  by  their  specious  smoothness 
and  hypocritical  hospitality  ;  but  He  knew  that  it  was  not  out  of  true 
heart  that  they  offered  Him  even  the  barest  courtesies  of  life.  The  fact 
that  He  was  alone  among  them,  and  that  He  should  have  been,  as  it 
were,  betrayed  into  such  company,  was  but  an  additional  reason  why  the 
flames  of  warning  and  judgment  should  thus  play  about  their  heads, 
w-hich  hereafter,  unless  they  repented,  should  strike  them  to  the  earth. 
Not  for  an  instant  could  they  succeed  in  deceiving  Him.  There  is  a 
spurious  kindness,  a  bitter  semblance  of  friendship  which  deserves  no 
respect.  It  may  pass  current  in  the  realms  of  empty  fashion  and  hollow 
civility,  where  often  the  words  of  men's  mouths  are  softer  than  butter, 
having  war  in  their  heart,  and  where,  though  their  throat  is  an  open 
sepulcher,  they  flatter  with  their  tongue ;  but  it  shrivels  to  nothing 
before  the  refining  fire  of  a  divine  discernment,  and  leaves  but  a  sicken- 
ing fume  behind.  The  time  had  come  for  Him  to  show  to  these  hypo- 
crites how  well  He  knew  the  deceitfulness  of  their  hearts,  how  deeply 
He  hated  the  wickedness  of  their  lives. 

They  felt  that  it  was  an  open  rupture.  The  feast  broke  up  in  con- 
fusion. The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  threw  off  the  mask.  From  fawning 
friends  and  interested  inquirers,  they  suddenly  sprang  up  in  their  true 
guise  as  deadly  opponents.  They  surrounded  Jesus,  they  pressed  upon 
Him  vehemently,  persistently,  almost  threateningly;  they  began  to  pour 
upon  Him  a  flood  of  questions,  to  examine,  to  catechise  Him,  to  try  and 
force  words  out  of  Him,  lying  in  ambush,  like  eager  hunters,  to  spring 
upon  any  confession  of  ignorance,  on  any  mistake  of  fact — above  all,  on 

1  See  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20,  21. 

2  The  modern  representatives  and  continuers  of  the  Pharisaic  sect  are  called  Perushim.  "'They 
proudly  separate  themselves  from  the  rest  of  their  co-religionists.  Fanatical,  bigoted,  intolerant,  quarrelsome, 
and  in  truth  irreligious,  with  them  the  outward  observance  of  the  ceremonial  law  is  everything,  the  mtral  law  little 
Hnding,  morality  itself  of  no  importance."     Such  is  the  testimony  of  a  Jew  !    (Frankl). 


THE  DAY  OF  CONFLICT.  327 

any  trace  of  heresy  on  which  they  might  found  that  legal  accusation  by 
which  before  long  they  hoped  to  put  him  down.' 

How  Jesus  escaped  from  this  unseemly  spectacle — how  He  was  able 
to  withdraw  Himself  from  this  display  of  hostility — we  are  not  told. 
Probably  it  might  be  sufficient  for  Him  to  wave  His  enemies  aside,  and 
bid  them  leave  Him  free  to  go  forth  again.  For,  meanwhile,  the  crowd 
had  gained  some  suspicion,  or  received  some  intimation,  of  what  was 
going  on  within.  They  had  suddenly  gathered  in  dense  myriads,  actually 
treading  on  each  other  in  their  haste  and  eagerness.'  Perhaps  a  dull, 
wrathful  murmur  from  without  warned  the  Pharisees  in  time  that  it 
might  be  dangerous  to  proceed  too  far,  and  Jesus  came  out  to  the  mul- 
titude with  His  whole  spirit  still  aglow  with  the  just  and  mighty  indig- 
nation by  which  it  had  been  pervaded.  Instantly — addressing  primarily  His 
own  disciples,  but  through  them  the  listening  thousands — He  broke  out  with 
a  solemn  warning,  "  Beware  ye  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  Avhich  is 
hypocrisy."  He  warned  them  that  there  was  One  before  whose  eye — ten 
thousand  times  brighter  than  the  sun — secrecy  was  impossible.  He  bade 
them  not  be  afraid  of  man — a  fear  to  which  the  sad  perturbances  of  these 
last  few  days  might  well  have  inclined  them — but  to  fear  Him  who  could 
not  only  destroy  the  body,  but  cast  the  soul  also  into  the  Gehenna  ^  of 
fire.  The  God  who  loved  them  would  care  for  them  ;  and  the  Son  of 
Man  would,  before  the  angels  of  God,  confess  them  who  confessed  Him 
before  men. 

While  He  was  thus  addressing  them.  His  discourse  was  broken  in 
upon  by  a  most  inopportune  interruption — not  this  time  of  hostility,  not 
of  ill-timed  interference,  not  of  overpowering  admiration,  but  of  simple 
policy  and  self-interest.  Some  covetous  and  half-instructed  member  of 
the  crowd,  seeing  the  listening  throngs,  hearing  the  words  of  authority 
and  power,  aware  of  the  recent  discomfiture  of  the  Pharisees,  expecting, 
perhaps,  some  immediate  revelation  of  Messianic  power,  determined  to  utilize 
the  occasion  for  his  own  wordly  ends.  He  thought — if  the  expression 
may  be  allowed — that  he  could  do  a  good  stroke  of  business,  and  most 
incongruously  and  irreverently  broke  in  with  the  request — 

"  Master,  speak  to  my  brother,  that  he  divide  the  inheritance  with  me." 

1  Luke  xi.  53. 

2  This  seems  to  be  implied  by  Luke  xii.  i.     The  aorist  marks  the  sudden  assemblage  of  the  crowd. 

3  Gehenna  is  a  corruption  of  the  Hebrew  Gt  Hinnom,  "  the  valley  of  Hinnom,"  outside  Jerusalem, 
which  had  first  been  rendered  infamous  by  Moloch  worship,  then  defiled  with  corpses,  lastly  saved  from 
putrefaction  and  pestilence  by  enormous  fires.     It  thus  became  a  type  of  all  that  was  terrible  and  disgusting. 


328  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Almost  stern  was  our  Lord's  rebuke  to  the  man's  egregious  self- 
absorption.  He  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those  not  uncommon  characters 
to  whom  the  whole  universe  is  pervaded  by  self ;  and  he  seems  to  have 
considered  that  the  main  object  of  the  Messiah's  coming  would  be  to 
secure  for  him  a  share  of  his  inheritance,  and  to  overrule  this  unmanage- 
able brother.  Jesus  at  once  dispelled  his  miserably  carnal  expectations,  and 
then  warned  him,  and  all  who  heard,  to  beware  of  letting  the  narrow  horizon 
of  earthly  comforts  span  their  hopes.  How  brief,  yet  how  rich  in  sig- 
nificance, is  that  little  parable  which  He  told  them,  of  the  rich  fool  who, 
in  his  greedy,  God-forgetting,  presumptuous  selfishness,  would  do  this  and 
that,  and  who,  as  though  there  was  no  such  thing  as  death,  and  as  though 
the  soul  could  live  by  bread,  thought-  that  "  my  fruits,"  and  "  my  goods," 
and  "my  barns,"  and  to  "eat  and  drink  and  be  merry,"  could  for  many 
years  to  come  sustain  what  was  left  him  of  a  soul,  but  to  whom  from 
heaven  pealed  as  a  terrible  echo  to  his  words  the  heart-thrilling  sentence 
of  awful  irony,   "  Thou  fool,  tliis  nigJit!"'^ 

And  then  our  Lord  expd^ded  the  thought.  He  told  them  that  the 
life  was  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  than  raiment.  Again  He  reminded 
them  how  God  clothes,  in  more  than  Solomon's  glory,  the  untoiling  lilies, 
and  feeds  the  careless  ravens  that  neither  sow  nor  reap.  Food  and  rai- 
ment, and  the  multitude  of  possessions,  were  not  life  :  they  had  better 
things  to  seek  after  and  to  look  for ;  let  them  not  be  tossed  on  this 
troubled  sea  of  faithless  care  ; '  be  theirs  the  life  of  fearless  hope,  of  freest 
charity,  the  life  of  the  girded  loin  and  the.  burning  lamp — as  servants 
watching  and  waiting  for  the  unknown  moment  of  their  Lord's  return. 

The  remarks  had  mainly  been  addressed  to  the  disciples,  though  the 
multitudes  also  heard  them,  and  were  by  no  means  excluded  from  their 
import.  But  here  Peter's  curiosity  got  the  better  of  him,  and  he  asks 
"whether  the  parable  was  meant  especially  for  them,  or  even  for  all?" 

To  that  question  our  Lord  did  not  reply,  and  His  silence  was  the  best 
reply.     Only  let  each  man  see  that  he  was  that  faithful  and  wise  servant ; 

1  Luke  xii.  i6 — 21.  It  is  not  indicated,  any  more  than  in  the  case  of  Dives,  that  his  riches  were 
unjustly  acquired;  his  fault  lay  in  his  forgetting  the  Giver;  forgetting  that  he  was  but  a  steward  of  them; 
forgetting  that  the  soul  cannot  live  by  them;  forgetting  how  soon  death  might  make  him  relax  his  grasp  of 
them.  It  is  clear  that  the  reminiscence  of  Nabal's  selfish  folly  and  wretched  death  was  in  our  Lord's  mind. 
The  passage,  too,  offers  sufficient  resemblance  to  a  beautiful  passage  in  the  Son  of  Sirach  to  establish  the 
interesting  conclusion  of  Stier,  that  our  Lord  was  also  familiar  with  the  Apocrypha.  In  the  original  Greek 
of  this  parable  there  is  a  singular  energy  and  liveliness,  quite  accordant  with  the  mood  of  intense  emotion 
under  which  Jesus  was  speaking. 

2  Luke  xii.  29,   "  Be  not  like  ships  that  toss  in  the  stormy  offing,  outside  the  harbor's  mouth." 


THE  DAY  OF  CONFLICT.  329 

blessed  indeed  should  he  then  be  ;  but  terrible  in  exact  proportion  to  his 
knowledge  and  his  privileges  should  be  the  fate  of  the  gluttonous,  cruel, 
faithless  drunkard  whom  the  Lord  should  surprise  in  the  midst  of  his 
iniquities. 

And  then — at  the  thought  of  that  awful  judgment — a  solemn  agony- 
passed  over  the  spirit  of  Christ.  He  thought  of  the  rejected  peace 
which  should  end  in  furious  war;  He  thought  of  the  divided  households 
and  the  separated  friends.  He  had  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with,  and 
His  soul  ^yas  straitened  with  anguish  till  it  was  accomplished.  He  had 
copie  to  fling  fire  upon  the  earth,  and  oh,  that  it  were  already  kindled  !  — 
that  fire  was  as  a  spiritual  baptism,  the  refining  fire,  which  should  at 
once  inspire  and  blind,  at  once  illuminate  and  "destroy,  at  once  harden 
the  clay  and  melt  the  gold.'  And  here  we  are  reminded  of  one  of  those 
remarkable  though  only  traditional  utterances  attibuted  to  Christ,  which 
may  possibly  have  been  connected  with  the  thought  here  expressed — 

"  He  who  is  near  me  is  near  the  fire  !  he  who  is  far  from  me  is  far 
from  the  kingdom." 

But  from  these  sad  thoughts  he  once  more  descended  to  the  imme- 
diate needs  of  the  multitude.  From  the  reddening  heaven,  from  the 
rising  clouds,  they  could  foretell  that  the  showers  would  fall  or  that  the 
burning  wind  would  blow — why  could  they  not  discern  the  signs  of  the 
times?  Were  they  not  looking  into  the  far-off  fields  of  heaven  for 
signs  which  were  in  the  air  they  breathed,  and  on  the  ground  they  trod 
upon  ;  and,  most  of  all — had  they  but  searched  rightly — in  the  state  of 
their  own  inmost  souls?  If  they  would  see  the  star  which  should  at 
once  direct  their  feet,  and  influence  their  destiny,  they  must  look  for  it, 
not  in  the  changing  skies  of  outward  circumstance,  but  each  in  the 
depth  of  his  own  heart.^  Let  them  seize  the  present  opportunity  to 
make  peace  with  God.  For  men  and  for  nations  the  "too  late"  comes 
at  last. 

And  there  the  discourse  seems  to  have  ended.  It  was  the  last  time 
for  many  days  that  they  were  to  hear  His  words.  Surrounded  by- 
enemies  who  were  not  only  powerful,  but  now  deeply  exasperated — 
obnoxious    to    the     immediate    courtiers     of     the    very    king    in    whose 

1  Luke  xii.  50.  "  How  am  I  straitened."  It  seems  to  make  the  "what  do  I  wish?"  a  question,  and 
regard  it  as  equivalent  to  "  would  that."  So  those  difficult  words  were  understood  by  Origen  (?),  Meyer, 
Stier,  Alford,  &c.,  and,  as  it  seems,  rightly  ;  though  probably  there  was  something  far  more  in  these  utter- 
ances of  deep  emotion  than  could  be  rightly  understood. 

2  Cf.  Matt.  xvi.  2,  3  ;  Luke  xii.  54 — 57. 


330 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


dominion  He  was  living — dogged  by  the  open  hatred  and  secret  conspiracies 
of  spies  whom  the  multitude  had  been  taught  to  reverence — feeling  that  the 
people  understood  Him  not,  and  that  in  the  minds  of  their  leaders  and 
teachers  sentence  of  death  and  condemnation  had  already  been  passed  upon 
Him — He  turned  His  back  for  a  time  upon  His  native  land,  and  went 
to  seek  in  idolatrous  and  alien  cities  the  rest  and  peace  which  were 
denied  Him  in  His  home. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 


AMONG       THE        HEATHEN. 
"  They  that  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  upon  them  hath  the  Light  shined."— IsA,  Ix.  2. 

^ 

HEN     Jesus    went    thence,  and    departed    into    the 
regions  of  Tyre  and  Sidon."' 

Such  is  the  brief  notice  which  prefaces  the 
few  and  scanty  records  of  a  period  of  His  life 
and  work  of  which,  had  it  been  vouchsafed  to 
us,  we  should  have  been  deeply  interested  to 
learn  something  more.  But  only  a  single  inci- 
dent of  this  visit  to  heathendom  has  been 
recorded.  It  might  have  seemed  that  in  that 
distant  region  there  would  be  a  certainty,  not 
of  safety  only,  but  even  of  repose  ;  but  such 
was  not  the  case.  We  have  already  seen  traces  that  the 
fame  of  His  miracles  had  penetrated  even  to  the  old 
Phenician  cities,  and  no  sooner  had  He  reached  their 
neighborhood  than  it  became  evident  that  He  could  not 
be  hid.  A  woman  sought  for  Him,  and  followed  the  little  company  of 
wayfarers  with  passionate  entreaties — "  Have  mercy  on  me,  O  Lord, 
Thou  Son  of  David  :  my  daughter  is  grievously  vexed  with  a  devil." 

We  might  have  imagined  that  our  Lord  would  answer  such  a  prayer 
with  immediate  and  tender  approbation,  and  all  the  more  because,  in 
granting  her  petition.  He  would  symbolically  have  been  representing/  the 
extension  of  His  kingdom  to  the  three  greatest  branches  of  the  P^gan 
world.  For  this  woman  was  by  birth  a  Canaanite,  and  a  Syn  Pheni- 
cian ;  by  position  a  Roman  subject ;  by  culture  and  language  a  Greek  ; 
and  her  appeal  for  mercy  to  the  Messiah  of  the  Chosen  PeopI  *  might 
well  look  like  the  first-fruits  of  that  harvest  in  which  the  good  seed 
should  spring  up  hereafter  in  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  Carthage,  and  Greece 
and     Rome.       But    Jesus — and    is    not     this     one     of     the     numberless 


1   Matt.  XV.  21 — 28  ;  Mark  vii.  24 — 30. 


332  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

indications  that  we  are  dealing,  not  with  loose  and  false  tradition,  but  with 
solid  fact? — "Jesus  answered  her  not  a  word." 

In  no  other  single  instance  are  we  told  of  a  similar  apparent  cold- 
ness on  the  part  of  Christ ;  nor  are  we  here  informed  of  the  causes 
which  influenced  His  actions.  Two  alone  suggest  themselves:  He  may 
have  desired  to  test  the  feelings  of  His  disciples,  who,  in  the  narrow 
spirit  of  Judaic  exclusiveness,  might  be  unprepared  to  see  Him  grant  His 
blessings,  not  only  to  a  Gentile,  but  a  Canaanite,  and  descendant  of  the 
accursed  race.  It  was  true  that  He  had  healed  the  servant  of  the  cen- 
turion, but  he  was  perhaps  a  Roman,  certainly  a  benefactor  to  the  Jews, 
and  in  all  probability  a  proselyte  of  the  gate.  But  it  is  more  likely  that, 
knowing  what  would  follow.  He  may  have  desired  to  test  yet  further 
the  woman's  faith,  both  that  He  might  crown  it  with  a  more  complete 
and  glorious  reward,  and  that  she  might  learn  something  deeper  respect- 
ing Him  than  the  mere  Jewish  title  that  she  may  have  accidentally 
picked  up.'  And  further  than  this,  since  every  miracle  is  also  rich  in 
moral  significance,  He  may  have  wished  for  all  time  to  encourage  us  in 
our  prayers  and  hopes,  and  teach  us  to  persevere,  even  when  it  might 
seem  that  His  face  is  dark  to  us,  or  that  His  ear  is  turned  away. 

Weary  with  the  importunity  of  her  cries,  the  disciples  begged  Him 
to  send  her  away.  But,  as  if  even  their  intercession  would  be  unavailing, 
He  said,   "  I  am  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep   of  the  Iiotise  of  Israel" 

Then  she  came  and  fell  at  His  feet,  and  began  to  worship  Him, 
saying,  "  Lord,  help  me."  Could  he  indeed  remain  untouched  by  that 
sorrow?  Could  He  reject  that  appeal?  and  would  He  leave  her  to  re- 
turn to  the  life-long  agony  of  watching  the  paroxysms  of  her  demoniac 
child  ?  Calmly  and  coldly  came  from  those  lips,  that  never  yet  had 
answered  with  anything  but  mercy  to  a  suppliant's  prayer — "  It  is  not 
meet  to  take  the  children's  bread  and  to  cast  it  to  dogs." 

Such  an  answer  might  well  have  struck  a  chill  into  her  soul ;  and 
had  He  not  foreseen  that  hers  was  the  rare  trust  which  can  see  mercy 
and  acceptance  even  in  apparent  rejection,  He  would  not  so  have 
answered  her.  But  not  all  the  snows  of  her  native  Lebanon  could 
quench  the  fire  of  love  which  was  burning  on  the  altar  of  her  heart,  and 
prompt  as  an  echo  came  forth  the  glorious  and  immortal  answer — 

"  Truth,   Lord  ;  then  let  me  share  the  condition,  not  of  the  children, 

I  In  Mark  iii.  8;  Luke  vi.  17,  we  are  distinctly  told  that  "they  about  Tyre  and  Sidon  "  were  among 
His  hearers,  and  the  witnesses  of  His  miracles  :  and  He  had  on  two  separate  occasions  at  least  been  pub- 
licly greeted  by  the  title,  "Son  of  David  "  (Matt.  ix.  27  ;  xii.  23). 


AMONG  THE  HEATHEN.  333 

but  of  the  dogs,  for  even  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall  from 
their   masters'  table." 

She  had  triumphed,  and  more  than  triumphed.  Not  one  moment 
longer  did  her  Lord  prolong  the  agony  of  her  suspense.  "  O  woman," 
He  exclaimed,  "great  is  thy  faith:  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt." 
And  with  his  usual  beautiful  and  graphic  simplicity  St.  Mark  ends  the 
narrative  with  the  touching  words,  "  And  when  she  was  come  to  her 
house,  she  found  the  devil  gone  out,  and  her  daughter  laid  upon  the  bed." 

How  long  our  Lord  remained  in  these  regions,  and  at  what  spot  He 
stayed,  we  do  not  know.  Probably  His  departure  was  hastened  by  the 
publicity  which  attended  His  movements  even  there,  and  which — in  a 
region  where  it  had  been  His  object  quietly  to  train  His  own  nearest 
and  most  beloved  followers,  and  not  either  to  preach  or  to  work  deeds 
of  mercy — would  only  impede  His  work.  He  therefore  left  that  interesting 
land.  On  Tyre,  with  its  commercial  magnificence,  its  ancient  traditions,  its 
gorgeous  and  impure  idolatries,  its  connection  with  the  history  and  proph- 
ecies of  His  native  land — on  Sarepta,  with  its  memories  of  Elijah's  flight 
and  Elijah's  miracles — on  Sidon,  with  its  fisheries  of  the  purple  murex,  its 
tombs  of  once-famous  and  long-forgotten  kings,  its  minarets  rising  out  of 
their  groves  of  palm  and  citron,  beside  the  blue  historic  sea — on  the  white 
wings  of  the  countless  vessels,  sailing  to  the  Isles  of  the  Gentiles,  and  to 
all  the  sunny  and  famous  regions  of  Greece  and  Italy  and  Spain — He  would 
doubtless  look  with  a  feeling  of  mingled  sorrow  and  interest.  But  His 
work  did  not  lie  here,  and  leaving  behind  Him  those  Phenician  shrines 
of  Melkarth  and  Asherah,  of  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth,  He  turned  eastward — 
probably  through  the  deep  and  beautiful  gorge  of  the  rushing  Leontes 
— and  so  reaching  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  traveled  southward  on  its 
further  bank  into  the  regions  of  Decapolis. 

Decapolis  was  the  name  given  to  a  district  east  of  the  Jordan,  ex- 
tending as  far  north  (apparently)  as  Damascus,  and  as  far  south  as  the 
river  Jabbok,  which  formed  the  northern  limit  of  Persea.  It  was  a  con- 
federacy of  ten  free  cities,  in  a  district  which,  on  their  return  from  exile, 
the  Jews  had  never  been  able  to  recover,  and  which  was  therefore  mainly 
occupied  by  Gentiles,  who  formed  a  separate  section  of  the  Roman  province. 
The  reception  of  Jesus  in  this  semi-pagan  district  seems  to  have  been 
favorable.  Wherever  He  went  He  was  unable  to  abstain  from  exercising 
His  miraculous  powers  in  favor  of  the  sufferers  for  whom  His  aid  was 
soudit ;  and  in  one  of  these  cities  He  was  entreated  to  heal  a  man  who 


334  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

was  deaf,  and  could  scarcely  speak."  He  might  have  healed  him  by  a 
word,  but  there  were  evidently  circumstances  in  his  case  which  rendered 
it  desirable  to  make  the  cure  gradual,  and  to  effect  it  by  visible  signs. 
He  took  the  man  aside,  put  His  fingers  in  his  ears,  and  spat,  and 
touched  his  tongue ;  and  then  St.  Mark  preserves  for  us  the  sigh,  and 
the  uplifted  glance,  as  He  spoke  the  one  word,  "  Ephphata !  Be  opened!" 
Here  again  it  is  not  revealed  to  us  what  were  the  immediate  influences 
which  saddened  His  spirit.  He  may  have  sighed  in  pity  for  the  man  ; 
He  may  have  sighed  in  pity  for  the  race  ;  He  may  have  sighed  for  all 
the  sins  that  degrade  and  all  the  sufferings  which  torture  ;  but  certainly 
He  sighed  in  a  spirit  of  deep  tenderness  and  compassion,  and  certainly 
that  sigh  ascended  like  an  infinite  intercession  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord 
God  of  Hosts.' 

The  multitudes  of  that  outlying  region,  unfamiliar  with  His  miracles, 
were  beyond  measure  astonished.  His  injunction  of  secrecy  was  as  usual 
disregarded,  and  all  hope  of  seclusion  was  at  an  end.  The  cure  had 
apparently  been  wrought  in  close  vicinity  to  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  and  great  multitudes  followed  Jesus  to  the  summit  of  a  hill 
overlooking  the  lake,  ^  and  there  bringing  their  lame,  and  blind,  and 
maimed,  and  dumb,  they  laid  them  at  the  feet  of  the  Good  Physician, 
and  He  healed  them  all.  Filled  with  intense  and  joyful  amazement, 
these  people  of  Decapolis  could  not  tear  themselves  from  His  presence, 
and — semi-pagans  as  they  were — they  "glorified  the  God  of  Israel."* 

Three  days  they  had  now  been  with  Him,  and,  as  many  of  them 
came  from  a  distance,  their  food  was  exhausted.  Jesus  pitied  then,  and 
seeing  their  faith,  and  unwilling  that  they  should  faint  by  the  way,  once 
more  spread  for  His  people  a  table  in  the  wilderness.  Some  have 
wondered  that,  in  answer  to  the  expression  of  His  pity,  the  disciples  did 
not  at  once  anticipate  or  suggest  what  He  should  do.  But  surely  here 
there  is  a  touch  of  delicacy  and  truth.  They  knew  that  there  was  in 
Him  no  prodigality  of  the  supernatural,  no  lavish  and  needless  exercise 
of  miraculous  power.  Many  and  many  a  time  had  they  been  with 
multitudes  before,  and  yet  on  one  occasion  only  had  He  fed  them  ;   and 

1  Mark  vii.  32 — 37. 

2  "  It  was  not  drawn  from  Him,"  says  Luther,  "  on  account  of  the  single  tongue  and  ears  of  this  poor 
man  ;  but  it  is  a  common  sigh  over  all  tongues  and  ears,  yea,  over  all  hearts,  bodies  and  souls,  and  over 
all  men,  from  Adam  to  his  last  descendant." 

3  Very  probably  near  the  Wady  Semakh,  nearly  opposite  Magdala. 

4  Matt.  XV.  19 — 39  ;  Mark  viii.  i — 9. 


AMONG  THE  HEATHEN.  335 

moreover,  after  He  had  done  so,  He  had  most  sternly  rebuked  those 
who  came  to  Him  in  expectation  of  a  repeated  offer  of  such  gifts,  and 
had  uttered  a  discourse  so  searching  and  strange  that  it  alienated  from 
Him  many  even  of  His  friends.'  For  them  to  suggest  to  Him  a  rep- 
etition of  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  would  be  a  presumption  which 
their  ever-deepening  reverence  forbade,  and  forbade  more  than  ever  as 
they  recalled  how  persistently  He  had  refused  the  bidding  of  others. 
But  no  sooner  had  He  given  them  the  signal  of  His  intention,  than 
with  perfect  faith  they  became  His  ready  ministers.  They  seated  the 
multitude,  and  distributed  to  them  the  miraculous  multiplication  of  the 
seven  loaves  and  the  few  small  fishes ;  and,  this  time  unbidden,  they 
gathered  the  fragments  that  remained,  and  with  them  filled  seven  large 
baskets  of  rope,  after  the  multitude — four  thousand  in  number,  besides 
women  and  children — had  eaten  and  were  filled.''  And  then  kindly  and 
peacefully,  and  with  no  exhibition  on  the  part  of  the  populace  of  that 
spurious  excitement  which  had  marked  the  former  miracle,  the  Lord  and 
His  Apostles  joined  in  sending  away  the    rejoicing    and   grateful  throng. 

1  Thase  points  have  been  (so  far  as  I  have  observed)  universally  overlooked. 

2  "  Large  baskets,"  this  time,  not  small  "'hand-baskets,"  as  in  the  previous  miracle:  for  the  size  of 
them  compare  Acts  ix.  25,  where  St.  Paul  is  let  down  the  wall  of  Damascus  in  a  basket.  To  suppose,  as 
some  have  done,  that  this  miracle  is  identical  with  the  Feeding  of  the  Five  Thousand — both  being  but 
blurred  traditions  of  one  and  the  same  event — is  simply  to  deprive  the  Evangelists  of  every  particle  of 
historical  value.  The  two  miracles  differ  in  almost  every  circumstance — in  time,  in  place,  in  numbers,  in 
results,  in  details  ;  and  it  is  a  striking  mark  of  truth,  which  certainly  would  not  be  found  in  the  work  of 
inventors,  that  the  lesser  miracle  is  put  after  the  greater,  our  Lord's  object  being  to  do  a  work  of  mercy, 
not  to  put  forth  a  display  of  power. 


CHAPTER      XXXV. 


THE    GREAT    CONFESSION. 


.^H 


^^ 


^:-3 


'These  have  known  that  Thou  hast  sent  me." — John  xvii.  25. 

ERY  different  was  the  reception  which  awaited 
Jesus  on  the  farther  shore.  The  poor  heathens 
of  DecapoHs  had  welcomed  Him  with  reverent 
enthusiasm  :  the  haughty  Pharisees  of  Jerusalem 
met  Him  with  sneering  hate.  It  may  be  that, 
after  this  period  of  absence,  His  human  soul 
yearned  for  the  only  resting-place  which  He  could 
call  a  home.  Entering  into  His  little  vessel.  He 
sailed  across  the  lake  to  Magdala. '  It  is  probable 
that  He  purposely  avoided  sailing  to  Bethsaida 
or  Capernaum,  which  are  a  little  north  of  Mag- 
dala, and  which  had  become  the  headquarters  of 
the  hostile  Pharisees.  But  it  seems  that  these 
^  gjis  ^    °  GJs  "  personages  had    kept  a  lookout  for  His  arrival. 

As  though  they  had  been  watching  from  the  tower  of  Magdala  for  the 
sail  of  His  returning  vessel,  barely  had  He  set  foot  on  shore  than  they 
came  forth  to  meet  Him.  Nor  were  they  alone:  this  time  they  were 
accompanied — ill-omened  conjunction  ! — with  their  rivals  and  enemies  the 
Sadducees,  that  skeptical  sect,  half-religious,  half-political,  to  which  at  this 
time  belonged  the  two  High  Priests,  as  well  as  the  members  of  the  reign- 
ing family.  ^  Every  section  of  the  ruling  classes — the  Pharisees,  formidable 
from  their  religious  weight  among  the  people ;  the  Sadducees,  few  in 
number,  but  powerful  from  wealth  and  position;  the  Herodians,  represent- 
ing the  influence  of  the  Romans,  and  of  their  nominees  the  tetrarchs ;  the 
scribes  and  lawyers,  bringing  to  bear  the  authority  of  their  orthodoxy  and 
their  learning — were  all  united  against  Him  in  one  firm  phalanx  of  con- 
spiracy and    opposition,    and  were  determined    above  all  things  to  hinder 

1  St.  Mark  says  (viii.  10),  "  the  parts  of  Dalmanutha."     Nothing  is  now  known  about  Dalmanutha. 

2  Acts  iv.  I,  5. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  2t,7 

His  preaching,  and  to  alienate  from  Him,  as  far  as  was  practicable,  the 
affections  of  the  people  among  whom  most  of  His  mighty  works  were 
done. ' 

They  had  already  found  by  experience  that  the  one  most  effectual 
weapon  to  discredit  His  mission  and  undermine  His  influence  was  the 
demand  of  a  sign — above  all,  a  sign  from  heaven.  If  He  were  indeed 
the  Messiah,  why  should  He  not  give  them  bread  from  heaven  as  Moses, 
they  said,  had  done?  where  were  Samuel's  thunder  and  Elijah's  flame? 
why  should  not  the  sun  be  darkened,  and  the  moon  turned  into  blood, 
and  the  stars  of  heaven  be  shaken  ?  why  should  not  some  fiery  pillar 
glide  before  them  to  victory,  or  the  burst  of  some  stormy  Bai/i  Kol 
ratify  His  words. 

They  knew  that  no  such  sign  would  be  granted  them,  and  they 
knew  that  He  had  vouchsafed  to  them  the  strongest  reasons  for  His 
thrice-repeated  refusal  to  gratify  their  presumptuous  and  unspiritual 
demand."  Had  they  known  or  understood  the  fact  of  His  temptation  in 
the  wilderness,  they  would  have  known  that  His  earliest  answers  to  the 
tempter  were  uttered  in  this  very  spirit  of  complete  self-abnegation.  If 
He  had  granted  their  request,  what  purpose  would  have  been  furthered  ? 
It  is  not  the  influence  of  external  forces,  but  it  is  the  germinal  principle 
of  life  within  which  makes  the  good  seed  to  grow  ;  nor  can  the  hard  heart 
be  converted,  or  the  stubborn  unbelief  removed,  by  portents  and  prodi- 
gies, but  by  inward  humility,  and  the  grace  of  God  stealing  downward 
like  the  dew  of  heaven,  in  silence  and  unseen.  What  would  have  ensued 
had  the  sign  been  vouchsafed  ?  By  its  actual  eye-witnesses  it  would 
have  been  attributed  to  demoniac  agency ;  by  those  to  whom  it  was 
reported  it  would  have  been  explained  away  ;  by  those  of  the  next  gen- 
eration it  would  have  been  denied  as  an  invention,  or  evaporated  into  a 
myth. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  felt  that  for  the 
present  this  refusal  to  gratify  their  demand  gave  them  a  handle  against 
Jesus,  and  was  an  effectual  engine  for  weakening  the  admiration  of  the 
people.  Yet  not  for  one  moment  did  He  hesitate  in  rejecting  this  their 
temptation.  He  would  not  work  any  epideictic  miracle  at  their  bidding, 
any  more  than  at  the  bidding  of  the  tempter.     He    at    once    told    them, 

1  Sepp,  whose  learning  is  strangely  deformed  by  constant  extravagances,  compares  the  eight  sects  of 
the  Jews  to  modern  schools  of  thought,  as  follows: — Pharise»6  =  pietists;  Essenes  =  mystics;  Sadducees  =- 
rationalists;  Herodians  =  political  clubs,  &c.;  Zealots  =  radicals;  Samaritans  =  schismatics  J 

2  John  ii.  i8 ;  vi.  30  ;  Matt.  xii.  38. 
22 


338  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

as  He  had  told  them  before,  that  "no  sign  sh*uld  be  given  them  but 
the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah."  Pointing  to  the  western  sky,  now  crim- 
son with  the  deepening  hues  of  sunset.  He  said,  "When  it  is-  evening, 
ye  say,  'Fair  weather!  for  the  sky  is  red  ;'  and  in  the  morning,  'Storm 
to-day,  for  the  sky  is  red  and  frowning.'  Hypocrites !  ye  know  how  to 
discern  the  face  of  the  sky:  can  ye  not  learn  the  signs  of   the  times?"' 

As  He  spoke  He  heaved  a  deep  inward  sigh.""  For  some  time  He 
had  been  absent  from  home.  He  had  been  sought  out  with  trustful  faith 
in  the  regions  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  He  had  been  welcomed  with  ready 
gratitude  in  heathen  Decapolis ;  here,  at  home.  He  was  met  with  the 
flaunt  of  triumphant  opposition,  under  the  guise  of  hypocritic  zeal.  He 
steps  ashore  on  the  lovely  plain,  where  He  had  done  so  many  noble  and 
tender  deeds,  and  spoken  for  all  time  such  transcendant  and  immortal 
words.  He  came  back,  haply  to  work  once  more  in  the  little  district 
where  His  steps  had  once  been  followed  by  rejoicing  thousands,  hanging 
in  deep  silence  on  every  word  He  spoke.  As  He  approaches  Magdala, 
the  little  village  destined  for  all  time  to  lend  its  name  to  a  word  expres- 
sive of  His  most  divine  compassion — as  He  wishes  to  enter  once  more 
the  little  cities  and  villages  which  offered  to  His  homelessness  the  only 
shadow  of  a  home — here,  barely  has  He  stepped  upon  the  pebbly  strand, 
barely  passed  through  the  fringe  of  flowering  shrubs  which  embroider 
the  water's  edge,  barely  listened  to  the  twittering  of  the  innumerable 
birds  which  welcome  Him  back  with  their  familiar  sounds — when  He 
finds  all  the  self-satisfied  hypocrisies  of  a  decadent  religion  drawn  up  in 
array  to  stop  His  path! 

He  did  not  press  His  mercies  on  those  who  rejected  them.  As  in 
after  days  His  nation  were  suffered  to  prefer  their  robber  and  their  mur- 
derer to  the  Lord  of  Life,  so  now  the  Galileans  were  suffered  to  keep 
their  Pharisees  and  lose  their  Christ.  He  left  them  as  He  had  left  the 
Gadarenes — rejected,  not  suffered  to  rest  even  in  His  home  ;  with  heavy 
heart,  solemnly  and  sadly  He  left  them — left  them  then  and  there — left 
them,  to  revisit,  indeed,  their  neighborhood  once  more,  but  never  again 
to  return  publicly — never    again    to    work    miracles,  to    teach  or  preach.^ 

It  must  have  been  late  in  that  autumn  evening  when  He  stepped 
once  more  into  the  little  ship,  and  bade  His  disciples    steer  their    course 

1  Matt.  xvi.  I — 4  ;  Mark  viii.  lo — 13. 

2  Mark  viii.  12. 

3  There  is  something  emphatic  both  in  Matt.  xvi.  4,  and  in  Mark  viii.  13. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  339 

towards  Bethsaida  Julias,  at  the  northern  end  of  the  lake.  On  their  way 
they  must  have  sailed  by  the  bright  sands  of  the  western  Bethsaida,  on 
which  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee  had  played  in  their  infancy,  and 
must  have  seen  the  white  marble  synagogue  of  Capernaum  flinging  its 
shadow  across  the  waters,  which  blushed  with  the  reflected  colors  of  the 
sunset.  Was  it  at  such  a  moment,  when  He  was  leaving  Galilee  with 
the  full  knowledge  that  His  work  there  was  at  an  end,  and  that  He  was 
sailing  away  from  it  under  the  ban  of  partial  excommunication  and  certain 
death — was  it  at  that  supreme  moment  of  sorrow  that  He  uttered  the 
rhythmic  woe  in  which  He  upbraided  the  unrepentant  cities  wherein  most 
of   His  mighty  works  were  done? — 

"Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin  !  woe  unto  thee,  Bethsaida!  for  if  the 
mighty  works  which  have  been  done  in  you  had  been  done  in  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  they  would  have  repented  long  ago  in  sackcloth  and  ashes. 

"  But  I  say  unto  you.  That  it  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  Tyre  and 
Sidon  at  the  day  of  judgment  than   for  you. 

"And  thou,  Capernaum,  which  art  exalted  unto  heaven,  shall  be 
brought  down  to  hell :  for  if  the  mighty  works  which  have  been  done  in 
thee  had  been  done  in  Sodom,  it  would  have    remained  until  this  day. 

"  But  I  say  unto  you.  That  it  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  the  land 
of  Sodom  in  the  day  of  judgment  than  for  thee ! " 

Whether  these  touching  words  were  uttered  on  this  occasion  as  a 
stern  and  sad  farewell  to  His  public  ministry  in  the  land  He  loved,  we 
cannot  tell;'  but  certainly  His  soul  was  still  filled  with  sorrow  for  the 
unbelief  and  hardness  of  heart,  the  darkened  intellects  and  corrupted 
consciences  of  those  who  were  thus  depriving  Him  of  all  power  to  set 
foot  in  His  native  land.  It  has  been  said  by  a  great  forensic  orator  that 
"  no  form  of  self-deceit  is  more  hateful  and  detestable  ....  than  that 
which  veils  spite  and  falsehood  under  the  guise  of  frankness,  and  behind 
the  profession  of  religion."  Repugnance  to  this  hideous  vice  must  have 
been  prominent  in  the  stricken  heart  of  Jesus,  when,  as  the  ship  sailed 
along    the    pleasant    shore    upon    its     northward    way.    He    said    to     His 

I  This  woe^ — evidently  complete  and  isolated  in  character — is  recorded  in  Matt.  xi.  20 — 24  ;  Luke  x. 
12 — 15.  St.  Matthew  seems  to  group  it  with  the  utterances  at  the  feast  of  Simon  the  Pharisee  ;  St.  Luke 
with  the  Mission  of  the  Seventy.  It  is,  perhaps,  hazardous  to  conjecture  that  words  so  solemnly  beautiful 
and  full  of  warning  were  uttered  more  than  once  ;  and  since  the  order  of  St.  Matthew  is  in  many  places 
professedly  unchronological,  we  can  find  no  more  appropriate  occasion  for  the  words  than  this.  They  have 
evidently  the  character  uf  a  farewell,  and  the  recent  visit  of  Jesus  to  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  would 
give  them  special  significance  here.  The  mention  of  the  otherwise  unknown  Chorazin  is  an  additional 
proof,  if  any  were  needed,  of  the  fragmentary  character  of  the  Gospels.  It  is  an  inland  town,  three  miles 
from  Tell  Hum,  of  wh'ch  the  deserted  ruins,  discovered  by  Dr.  Robinson,  are  still  called  Khersah. 


340  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

disciples,  "  Take  heed,  and  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees."' 

He  added  nothing  more  ;  and  the  strange  simplicity  of  the  disciples 
foolishly  misinterpreted  the  words.  They  were  constantly  taking  His 
figurative  expressions  literally,  and  His  literal  expressions  metaphorically. 
When  He  called  Himself  the  "  bread  .  from  heaven,"  they  thought  the 
saying  hard ;  when  He  said,  "  I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of," 
they  could  only  remark,  "Hath  any  man  brought  Him  aught  to  eat?" 
when  He  said,  "  Our  friend  Lazarus  sleepeth,"  they  answered,  "Lord,  if 
he  sleep  he  shall  do  well."  And  so  now,  although  leaven  was  one  of  the 
very  commonest  types  of  sin,  and  especially  of  insidious  and  subterra- 
nean sin,  the  only  interpretation  which,  after  a  discussion  among  them- 
selves, they  could  attach  to  His  remark  was,  that  He  was  warning  them 
not  to  buy  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  or,  perhaps,  indirectly 
reproaching  them  because,  in  the  sorrow  and  hurry  of  their  unexpected 
re-embarkation,  they  had  only  brought  with  them  one  single  loaf!  Jesus 
was  grieved  at  this  utter  non-comprehension,  this  almost  stupid  literalism. 
Did  they  suppose  that  He,  at  whose  words  the  loaves  and  fishes  had 
been  so  miraculously  multiplied — that  they,  who  after  feeding  the  five 
thousand  had  gathered  twelve  hand-baskets,  and  after  feeding  the  four 
thousand  had  gathered  seven  large  baskets-full  of  the  fragments  that 
remained — did  they  suppose,  after  that,  that  there  was  danger  lest  He 
or  they  should  suffer  from  starvation?  There  was  something  almost  of 
indignation  in  the  rapid  questions  in  which,  without  correcting.  He  indi- 
cated their  error.  "  Why  reason  ye  because  ye  have  no  bread  ?  Per- 
ceive ye  not  yet,  neither  understand?  Have  ye  your  heart  yet  hardened ? 
Having  eyes,  see  ye  not  ?  and  having  ears,  hear  ye  not  ?  and  do  ye  not 
remember?"  And  then  once  more,  after  He  had  reminded  them  of  those 
miracles,  "How  is  it  that  ye  do  not  understand?"  They  had  not  ven- 
tured to  ask  Him  for  any  explanation  ;  there  was  something  about  Him 
— something  so  awe-inspiring  and  exalted  in  His  personality — that  their 
love  for  Him,  intense  though  it  was,  was  tempered  by  an  overwhelming 
reverence :  but  now  it  began  to  dawn  upon  them  that  something  else 
was  meant,  and  that  He  was  bidding  them  beware,  not  of  the  leaven  of 
bread,  but  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees. 

At  Bethsaida  Julias,  probably  on  the  following  morning,  a  blind  man 
was  brought  to  Him  for   healing.     The    cure    was    wrought  in  a  manner 

I  Or  "of  Herod"  (Mark.  viii.  15).     The  Herodians  appear  to  have  been  mainly  Sadducees. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  341 

very  similar  to  that  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  man  in  Decapolis,  It  has 
none  of  the  ready  freedom,  the  radiant  spontaneity  of  the  earHer  and 
happier  miracles.  In  one  respect  it  differs  from  every  other  recorded 
miracle,  for  it  was,  as  it  were,  tentative.  Jesus  took  the  man  by  the 
hand,  led  him  out  ,of  the  village,  spat  upon  his  eyes,  and  then,  laying 
His  hands  upon  them,  asked  if  he  saw.  The  man  looked  at  the  figures 
in  the  distance,  and,  but  imperfectly  cured  as  yet,  said,  "  I  see  men  as 
trees  walking."  Not  until  Jesus  had  laid  His  hands  a  second  time  upon 
his  eyes  did  he  see  clearly.  And  then  Jesus  bade  him  go  to  his  house, 
which  was  not  at  Bethsaida  ;  for,  with  an  emphatic  repetition  of  the 
word,  he  is  forbidden  either  to  enter  into  the  town,  or  to  tell  it  to  any  one 
in  the  town.  We  cannot  explain  the  causes  of  the  method  which  Christ  here 
adopted.  The  impossibility  of  understanding  what  guided  His  actions  arises 
from  the  brevity  of  the  narrative,  in  which — as  is  so  often  the  case  with 
writers  conversant  with  their  subject — the  Evangelist  passes  over  many  par- 
ticulars, which,  because  they  were  so  familiar  to  himself,  will,  he  supposes, 
be  self-explaining  to  those  who  read  his  words.  All  that  we  can  dimly  see  is 
Christ's  dislike  and  avoidance  of  these  heathenish  Herodian  towns,  with  their 
spurious  and  tainted  Hellenism,  their  tampering  with  idolatry,  and  even  their 
very  names  commemorating,  as  was  the  case  with  Bethsaida  Julias,  some 
of  the  most  contemptible  of  the  human  race."  We  see  from  the  Gospels 
themselves  that  the  richness  and  power  displayed  in  the  miracles  was 
correlative  to  the  faith  of  the  recipients :  in  places  where  faith  was  scanty 
it  was  but  too  natural  that  miracles  should  be  gradual  and  few.^ 

Leaving  Bethsaida  Julias,  Jesus  made  his  way  towards  Caesarea 
Philippi.  Here,  again,  it  seems  to  be  distinctly  intimated  that  He  did 
not  enter  into  the  town  itself,  but  only  visited  the  "coasts"  of  it,  or 
wandered  about  the  neighboring  villages.^  Why  He  bent  His  footsteps 
in  that  direction  we  are  not  told.  It  was  a  town  that  had  seen  many 
vicissitudes.  It  is  very  probably  the  Baal-gad  of  Josh.  xi.  17,  and  is  not 
far  from  Tell  el  Kadi,  which,  as  "  Laish,"  had  been  the  possession  of 
the  careless  Sidonians,  and,  as  "  Dan,"  had  been  the  chief  refuge  of  a 
warlike  tribe  of  Israel,  the  northern  limit  of  the  Israelitish  kingdom,  and 

1  Herod  Philip  had  named  his  renovated  capital  in  honor  of  Julia,  the  abandoned  daughter  of  the 
Emperor  Augustus. 

2  No  one  who  has  rightly  considered  the  Gospel  miracles  will  regard  this  as  "  a  damaging  concession." 
At  any  rate,  if  so,  it  is  a  fresh  proof  of  the  entire  truthfulness  of  the  Gospels.  (Matt.  xiii.  58  ;  Mark  vi.  5, 
6  ;  ix.  23,  &c.)  , 

3  Matt.  xvi.  13  ;  Mark  viii.  27. 


342  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  seat  of  the  idolatry  of  the  golden  calf.  Colonized  by  Greeks,  its 
name  had  been  changed  into  Paneas,  in  honor  of  the  cave  under  its 
towering  hill,  which  had  been  artificially  fashioned  into  a  grotto  of  Pan, 
and  adorned  with  niches,  which  once  contained  statues  of  his  sylvan 
nymphs.  As  the  capital  of  Herod  Philip,  it  had  been  re-named  in  honor 
of  himself  and  his  patron  Tiberius.  Jesus  might  gaze  with  interest  on 
the  noble  ranges  of  Libanus  and  Anti-Libanus ;  He  might  watch  the 
splendid  and  snowy  mass  of  Hermon  glittering  under  the  dawn,  or 
flushed  with  its  evening  glow  ;  He  might  wander  round  Lake  Phiala, 
and  see  the  copious  fountain  where,  according  to  a  popular  tradition, 
the  Jordan,  after  a  subterranean  course,  bursts  rejoicing  into  the  light  : 
but  He  could  only  have  gazed  with  sorrow  on  the  city  itself,  with  its 
dark  memories  of  Israelitish  apostacy,  its  poor  mimicry  of  Roman 
imperialism,  and  the  broken  statues  of  its  unhallowed  and  Hellenic  cave. 

But  it  was  on  His  way  to  the  northern  region  that  there  occurred 
an  incident  which  may  well  be  regarded  as  the  culminating  point  of  His 
earthly  ministry."  He  was  alone.  The  crowd  that  surged  so  tumultuously 
about  Him  in  more  frequented  districts,  here  only  fipllowed  Him  at  a 
distance.  Only  His  disciples  were  near  Him  as  He  stood  apart  in 
solitary  prayer.  And  when  the  prayer  was  over.  He  beckoned  them 
about  Him  as  they  continued  their  journey,  and  asked  them  those  two 
momentous  questions  on  the  answers  to  which  depended  the  whole  out- 
come of  His  work  on  earth. 

First  He  asked  them — 

"  Whom  do  men  say  that  I  the  Son  of  Man  am  ? " 

The  answer  was  a  sad  one.  The  Apostles  dared  not  and  would  not  speak 
aught  but  the  words  of  soberness  and  truth,  and  they  made  the  disheartening 
admission  that  the  Messiah  had  not  been  recognized  by  the  world  which 
He  came  to  save.  They  could  only  repeat  the  idle  guesses  of  the  peo- 
ple. Some,  echoing  the  verdict  of  the  guilty  conscience  of  Antipas,  said 
that  He  was  John  the  Baptist;  some,  who  may  have  heard  the  sterner 
denunciations  of  His  impassioned  grief,  caught  in  that  mighty  utterance 
the  thunder-tones  of  a  new  Elijah  ;  others,  who  had  listened  to  His  ac- 
cents of  tenderness  and  words  of  universal  love,  saw  in  Him  the  plaintive 
soul  of  Jeremiah,  and  thought  that  He  had  come,  perhaps,  to  restore 
them  the  lost  Urim  and  the  vanished  Ark  :  others,  and  these  the  most 
numerous,  regarded  Him  only   as   a    Prophet  and    a  Precursor.     None— 

I   Matt.  xvi.  13 — 28  ;  Mark  viii.  27 — ix.  I  ;  Luke  ix.  18 — 27. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  343 

in  spite  of  an  occasional  Messianic  cry  wrung  from  the  admiration  of  tlie 
multitude,  amazed  by  some  unwonted  diplay  of  power — none  dreamt  of 
who  He  was.  The  light  had  shown  in  the  darkness,  and  the  darkness 
comprehended  it  not. 

"But  whom  say  ye  that  I  am?" 

Had  that  great  question  been  answered  otherwise — could  it  have 
been  answered  otherwise — the  world's  whole  destinies  might  have  been 
changed.  Had  it  been  answered  otherwise,  then,  humanly  speaking,  so 
far  the  mission  of  the  Saviour  would  have  wholly  failed,  and  Chris- 
tianity and  Christendom  have  never  been.  For  the  work  of  Christ  on 
earth  lay  mainly  with  His  disciples.  He  sowed  the  seed,  they  reaped 
the  harvest ;  He  converted  them,  and  they  the  world.  He  had  never 
openly  spoken  of  His  Messiahship.  John  indeed  had  borne  witness  to 
Him,  and  to  those  who  could  receive  ir  He  had  indirectly  intimated,  both 
in  word  and  deed,  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  But  it  was  His  will 
that  the  light  of  revelation  should  dawn  gradually  on  the  minds  of  His 
children  ;  that  it  should  spring  more  from  the  truths  He  spake,  and  the 
life  He  lived,  than  from  the  wonders  which  He  wrought  ;  that  it  should 
be  conveyed  not  in  sudden  thunder-crashes  of  supernatural  majesty,  but 
through  the  quiet  medium  of  a  sinless  and  self-sacrificing  course.  It  was 
in  the  holiness  of  the  Son  of  Man  that  they  were  to  recognize  the 
majesty  of  the  Son  of  God. 

But  the  answer  came,  as  from  everlasting  it  had  been  written  in  the 
book  of  destiny  that  it  should  come  ;  and  Peter,  the  ever  warm-hearted, 
the  coryplieiis  of  the  Apostolic  choir,  had  the  immortal  honor  of  givino- 
it  utterance  for  them  all — 

"Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the    Living  God!" 

Such  an  answer  from  the  chief  of  the  Apostles  atoned  by  its  fullness 
of  insight  and  certitude  of  conviction  for  the  defective  appreciation  of 
the  multitudes.'  It  showed  that  at  last  the  great  mystery  was  revealed 
which  had  been  hidden  from  the  ages  and  the  generations.  The  Apostles 
at  least  had  recognized  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  promised  Messiah  of 
their  nation,  and  it  had  further  been  revealed  to  them  by  the  special 
grace  of  God  that  that  Messiah  was  not  only  what    the    Jews    expected, 

I  He  says,  not  "  we  say,"  but  "  Thou  art."  St.  Peter  was  "  primus  inter  pares  " — a  leader,  but  among 
equals.  Had  he  been  more  than  this — had  Christ's  words  been  intended  to  bestow  on  him  the  least 
shadow  of  supremacy— how  could  James  and  John  have  asked  to  sit  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left  of 
Christ  in  His  kingdom  ?  And  how  could  the  Apostles  on  at  least  two  subsequent  occasions  have  disputed 
\.  i.o  among  them  should  be  the  greatest  ? 


344  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

a  Prince,  and  a  Ruler,  and  a  Son    of    David,  but  was    more    than    this — 
even  the  Son  of  the  living  God. 

With  awful  solemnity  did  the  Saviour  ratify  that  great  confession. 
"  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon,  son  of 
Jonas:'  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  my 
Father  which  is  in  heaven.^  And  I  say  unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter 
{Petros),  and  on  this  rock  (^petrd)  I  will  build  my  church,  and  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.'  And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth 
shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on  earth  shall 
be  loosed  in  heaven." 

Never  did  even  the  lips  of  Jesus  utter  more  memorable  words.  It  was 
His  own  testimony  of  Himself.  It  was  the  promise  that  they  who  can 
acknowledge  it  are  blessed.  It  was  the  revealed  fact  that  they  only  can 
acknowledge  it  who  are  led  thereto  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  told  man- 
kind for  ever  that  not  by  earthly  criticisms,  but  only  by  heavenly  grace, 
can  the  full  knowledge  of  that  truth  be  obtained.  It- was  the  laying  of 
the  corner-stone  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  the  earliest  occasion  on 
which  was  uttered  that  memorable  word,  thereafter  to  be  so  intimate!) 
blended  with  the  history  of  the  world.''  It  was  the  promise  that  that 
Church  founded  on  the  rock  of  inspired  confession  should  remain  uncon- 
quered  by  all  the  powers  of  hell.  It  was  the  conferring  upon  that 
Church,  in  the  person  of  its  typical  representative,  the  power  to  open 
and  shut,  to  bind  and  loose,  and  the  promise  that  the  power  faithfully 
exercised  on  earth  should  be  finally  ratified  in  heaven. 

"  Tute  haec  omnia  dicuntur,"  says  the  great  Bengel,  "nam  quid  ad 
Romam?" — "all  these  statements  are  made  with  safety;  for  what  have 
they    to    do    with    Rome  ? "  =     Let    him    who    will    wade    through    all    the 

1  So,  too,  Jesus  addressed  him  on  other  solemn  occasions  (John  xxi.  15 — 17). 

2  Not  the  common  Jewish  "  our  Father,"  but  "  my  Father." 

3  Similar  plays  on  words,  founded  on  very  deep  principles,  are  common  among  deep  thinkers  in  all 
tongues.  Our  Lord  was  probably  speaking  in  Aramaic,  in  which  language  the  phrase  "  gates  of  hell  " 
presents  a  pleasing  assonance.  If  so.  He  probably  said,  "  Thou  art  Kephas,  and  on  this  Kepha  I  will,"  &c. 
Many  commentators,  from  the  earliest  ages  downwards,  have  understood  "this  rock"  to  be  either  the 
confession  of  Peter,  or  Christ  himself  ;  it  is  difficult,  however,  in  either  of  these  cases  to  see  any  force  in 
the  "  Thou  art  Peter."  On  the  other  hand,  to  speak  of  a  man  as  "  the  rock  "  is  unlike  the  ordinary  lan- 
guage of  Scripture.  "  Who  is  a  rock  save  our  God?"  (2  Sam.  xxii.  32;  Ps.  xviii.  31  ;  Ixii.  2  ;  Isa.  xxviii.  16  ; 
and  see  especially  i  Cor.  iii.  11  ;  x.  4).  The  key  was  a  common  Jewish  metaphor  for  authority  (Isa. 
xxii.  22  ;  Luke  xi.  52). 

4  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  word  "  church  "  occurs  but  once  again  in  the  Gospels  (Matt,  xviii.  17). 

5  The  following  texts  are  alone  sufficient  to  prove  finally  that  St.  Peter  in  no  way  exercised  among  the. 
Apostles  any  paramount  or  supreme  authority  : — Matt,  xviii.  i;  Eph.  ii.  20;  Rev.  xxi.  14;  2  Cor.  xi.  5;  xii. 
11;  Gal.  ii.  9,  11;  Luke  xxii.  24,  26;  John  xxi.  19 — 23,  &c. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  345 

controversy  necessitated  by  the  memorable  perversions  of  this  memorable 
text,  which  runs  as  an  inscription  round  the  interior  of  the  great  dome  of 
St.  Peter's.  But  little  force  is  needed  to  overthrow  the  strange  inverted 
pyramid?  of  argument  which  have  been  built  upon  it.  Were  it  not  a 
matter  of  history,  it  would  have  been  deemed  incredible  that  on  so  imagin- 
ary a  foundation  should  have  been  rested  the  fantastic  claim  that  abnormal 
power  should  be  conceded  to  the  bishops  of  a  Church  which  almost  cer- 
tainly St.  Peter  did  not  found,  and  in  a  city  in  which  there  is  no  indis- 
putable proof  that  he  ever  set  his  foot.  The  immense  arrogancies  of 
sacerdotalism  ;  the  disgraceful  abuses  of  the  confessional ;  the  imaginary 
power  of  absolving  from  oaths  ;  the  ambitious  assumption  of  a  right  to 
crush  and  control  the  civil  power ;  the  extravagant  usurpation  of  infalli- 
bility in  wielding  the  dangerous  weapons  of  anathema  and  excommunica- 
tion ;  the  colossal  tyrannies  of  the  Popedom,  and  the  detestable  cruelties 
of  the  Inquisition — all  these  abominations  are,  we  may  hope,  henceforth 
and  for  ever,  things  of  the  past.  But  the  Church  of  Christ  remains,  of 
which  Peter  was  a  chief  foundation,  a  living  stone.  The  powers  of  hell 
have  not  prevailed  against  it ;  it  still  has  a  commission  to  fling  wide  open 
the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  it  still  may  loose  us  from  idle 
traditional  burdens  and  meaningless  ceremonial  observances ;  it  still  may 
bind  upon  our  hearts  and  consciences  the  truths  of  revealed  religion  and 
the  eternal  obligations  of  the  Moral  Law. 

To  Peter  himself  the  great  promise  was  remarkably  fulfilled.  It  was 
he  who  converted  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  the  first  great  body  of  Jews 
who  adopted  the  Christian  faith ;  it  was  he  who  admitted  the  earliest 
Gentile  into  the  full  privileges  of  Christian  fellowship. "  His  confession 
made  him  as  a  rock,  on  which  the  faith  of  many  was  founded,  which  the 
powers  of  Hades  might  shake,  but  over  which  they  never  could  prevail. 
But,  as  has  been  well  added  by  one  of  the  deepest,  most  venerable,  and 
most  learned  Fathers  of  the  ancient  Church,  "  If  any  one.  thus  confess, 
when  flesh  and  blood  have  not  revealed  it  unto  him,  but  our  Father  in 
heaven,  he,  too,  shall  obtain  the  promised  blessings  ;  as  the  letter  of  the 
Gospel  saith  indeed  to  the  great  St.  Peter,  but  as  its  spirit  teacheth  to 
every  man  who  hath  become  like  what  that  great  Peter  was."^ 

1  Peter  himself  points  to  this  fact  as  a  fulfillment  of  Christ's  promise  (Acts  xv.  7). 

2  Origen.  A  full  consideration  of  this  great  utterance  to  St.  Peter  must  be  sought  for  in  works  profess- 
edly theological,  but  I  may  here  call  special  attention  to  a  calm  and  admirable  sermon,  "Confession  and 
Absolution,"  by  ray  friend  Professor  Plumptre,  in  which  he  points  out  the  distinction  which  must  be  care- 
fully drawn  between  three  separate  things  too  often  confounded — viz.,  the  "  Power  of  the  Keys,"  the  power 


346  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

It  may  be  said  that,  from  that  time  forth,  the  Saviour  might  regard 
one  great  portion  of  His  work  on  earth  as  having  been  accompHshed. 
His  Apostles  were  now  convinced  of  the  mystery  of  His  being;  the 
foundations  were  laid  on  which,  with  Himself  as  the  chief  corner-stone, 
the  whole  vast  edifice  was  to  be  hereafter  built. 

But  He  forbade  them  to  reveal  this  truth  as  yet.  The  time  for  such 
preaching  had  not  yet  come.  They  were  yet  wholly  ignorant  of  the  true 
method  of  His  manifestation.  They  were  yet  too  unconfirmed  in  faith 
even  to  remain  true  to  Him  in  His  hour  of  utmost  need.  As  yet  He 
would  be  known  as  the  Christ  to  those  only  whose  spiritual  insight  could 
see  Him  immediately  in  His  life  and  in  His  works.  As  yet  He  would 
neither  strive  nor  cr)%  nor  should  His  voice  be  heard  in  the  streets." 
When  their  own  faith  was  confirmed  beyond  all  wavering  by  the  mighty 
fact  of  His  resurrection,  when  their  hearts  had  been  filled  with  the  new 
Shecinah  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  and  their  brows,  with  final  consecration, 
had  been  mitered  with  Pentecostal  flame,  then,  but  not  till  then,  would  the 
hour  have  come  for  them  to  go  forth  and  teach  all  nations  that  Jesus 
was  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God. 

But  although  they  now  knew  Him,  they  knew  nothing  as  yet  of  the 
way  in  which  it  was  His  will  to  carrj'  out  His  divine  purposes.  It  was 
time  that  they  should  yet  further  be  prepared  ;  it  was  time  that  they 
should  learn  that.  King  though  He  was.  His  kingdom  was  not  of  this 
world ;  it  was  time  that  all  idle  earthly  hopes  of  splendor  and  advance- 
ment in  the  Messianic  kingdom  should  be  quenched  in  them  for  ever, 
and  that  they  should  know  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and 
drink,  but  righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  believing. 

Therefore  He  began,  calmly  and  deliberately,  to  reveal  to  them  His 
intended  journey  to  Jerusalem,  His  rejection  by  the  leaders  of  His  nation, 
the    anguish    and    insult    that    awaited     Him,     His     violent     death.    His 

to  bind  and  loose,  and  ihe  power  to  remit  or  retain,  i.  The  first  (since  the  delivery  of  a  key  formed  the 
ordination  of  a  Scribe)  meant  the  "  power  to  open  the  treasury  of  the  Divine  oracles,  and  bring  them  out 
to  Christ's  disciples"  (cf.  Matt.  xiii.  52;  Luke  xi.  52;  Matt,  xxiii.  4).  To  those  who  heard,  it  must  have 
implied  the  leaching  power  of  the  Church.  2.  The  power  to  bind  and  loose,  afterwards  conferred  on  all  the 
disciples  (Matt,  xviii.  18),  gave  them  a  power  like  that  exercised  by  the  Rabbis  (e.g.,  the  school  of  Shammai, 
which,  according  to  the  Jewish  proverb,  bound,  and  the  school  of  Hillel,  which  loosed) — the  power,  namely, 
to  declare  what  precepts  are,  and  what  are  not,  binding(cf.  Matt,  xxiii.  4;  Acts  x.  2S).  It  implied,  therefore, 
the  legislative  action  of  the  Church.  3.  The  power  to  forgive  and  retain  sins  (John  xx.  22.  23)  far  transcended 
these,  and  was  distinctly  rejected  by  the  Scribes.  It  belongs  to  the  prophetic  office  of  the  Church,  and  had 
direct  reference  to  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  "  was  possible  only  so  far  as  the  prophetic  gift,  in  greater 
or  less  measure,  was  bestowed  on  those  who  exercise  it." 

I  Matt.  xii.  19  ;  Isa.  xlii.  i. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  347 

resurrection  on  the  third  day.  He  had,  indeed,  on  previous  occasions  given 
them  divers  and  distant  intimations '  of  these  approaching  sufferings,  but 
now  for  the  first  time  He  dwelt  on  them  distinctly,  and  that  with  full 
freedom  of  speech.''  Yet  even  now  He  did  not  reveal  in  its  entire  awful- 
ness  the  majuicr  of  His  approaching  death.  He  made  known  unto  them, 
indeed,  that  He  should  be  rejected  by  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and 
scribes — by  all  the  authorities,  and  dignities,  and  sanctities  of  the  nation — 
but  not  that  He  should  be  delivered  to  the  Gentiles.  He  warned  them 
that  He  should  be  killed,  but  He  reserved  till  the  time  of  His  last 
journey  to  Jerusalem  the  horrible  fact  that  He  should  be  crucified.^  He 
thus  revealed  to  them  the  future  only  as  they  were  best  able  to  bear  it, 
and  even  then,  to  console  their  anguish  and  to  support  their  faith,  He 
told  them  quite  distinctly,  that  on  the  third  day  He  should  rise  again. 
But  the  human  mind  has  a  singular  capacity  for  rejecting  that  which 
it  cannot  comprehend — for  ignoring  and  forgetting  all  that  does  not  fall 
within  the  range  of  its  previous  conceptions.  The  Apostles,  ever  faithful 
and  ever  simple  in  their  testimony,  never  conceal  from  us  their  dullness 
of  spiritual  insight,  nor  the  dominance  of  Judaic  preconceptions  over 
their  minds.*  They  heard  the  announcement,  but  they  did  not  realize  it. 
"  They  understood  not  this  saying,  and  it  was  hid  from  them,  that  they 
perceived  it  not."'  Now  as  on  so  many  other  occasions  a  supernatural 
awe  was  upon  them,  "and  they  feared  to  ask  Him."*  The  prediction 
of  His  end  was  so  completely  alien  from  their  whole  habit  of  thought, 
that  they  would  only  put  it  aside  as  irrelevant  and  unintelligible — some 
mystery  which  they  could  not  fathom  ;  and  as  regards  the  resurrection, 
when  it  was  again  prophesied  to  the  most  spiritual  among  them  all,  they 
could  only  question  among  one  another  what  the  rising  from  the  dead 
should  mean.' 

1  Matt.  X.  3S  ;  John  iii.  14.  But  now  "  he  began  to  indicate"  (Matt.  xvi.  21).  A  still  further  grada- 
tion, a  still  clearer  prophecy,  may  be  observed  from  time  to  time  as  the  day  approached  (Matt.  xvi.  21; 
xvii.  22  ;  XX.  18 ;  xxvi.  2). 

2  Mark  viii.  32.  Earlier  and  dimmer  intimations  were  John  ii.  19  ("  Destroy  this  Temple  ")  ;  iii.  14 
("shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  lifted  up  ")  ;  Matt,  ix.  15  ("the  Bridegroom  shall  be  taken  away  from  them"); 
John  vi.  51  ("my  flesh  will  I  give  for  the  life  of  the  world");  Matt.  xvi.  4  ("the  sign  of  the  prophet 
Jonas"). 

3  Matt.  xvi.  21  ;  xx.  19.  The  manner  of  His  death  was,  however,  distinctly  intimated  in  the  metaphor 
of  "taking  up_  the  cross,"  immediately  afterwards  (xvi.  24). 

4  Matt.  XV.  17  ;  xvi.  7;  John  iv.  32  ;  xi.  ii,  12,  16. 

5  Luke  ix.  45. 

6  Mark  ix.  32  ;  Luke  ii.  50  ;  xviii.  34. 

7  Mark  ix.  lo. 


348  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

But  Peter,  in  his  impetuosity,  thought  that  he  understood,  and 
thought  that  he  could  prevent ;  and  so  he  interrupted  those  solemn  utter- 
ances by  his  ignorant  and  presumptuous  zeal.  The  sense  that  it  had 
been  given  to  him  to  perceive  and  utter  a  new  and  mighty  truth,  together 
with  the  splendid  eulogium  and  promise  which  he  had  just  received,  com- 
bined to  inflate  his  intellect  and  misguide  his  heart  ;  and  taking  Jesus  by 
the  hand  or  by  the  robe,"  he  led  Him  a  step  or  two  aside  from  the  dis- 
ciples, and  began  to  advise,  to  instruct,  to  rebuke  his  Lord.  "  God  for- 
bid,"' he  said  ;  "this  shall  certainly  not  happen  to  thee."  With  a  flash  of 
sudden  indignation  our  Lord  rebuked  his  worldliness  and  presumption. 
Turning  away  from  him,  fixing  His  eyes  on  the  other  disciples,  and 
speaking  in  the  hearing  of  them  all — for  it  was  fit  that  they  who  had  heard 
the  words  of  vast  promise  should  hear  also  the  crushing  rebuke — He  ex- 
claimed, "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  !  thou  art  a  stumbling-block  unto 
me  ;  for  thy  thoughts  are  not  the  thoughts  of  God,  but  of  men."  This 
thy  mere  carnal  and  human  view — this  attempt  to  dissuade  me  from  my 
"baptism  of  death" — is  a  sin  against  the  purposes  of  God.^  Peter  was 
to  learn — would  that  the  Church  which  professes  to  have  inherited  from 
him  its  exclusive  and  superhuman  claims  had  also  learnt  in  time  ! — that 
he  was  far  indeed  from  being  infallible — that  he  was  capable  of  falling, 
aye,  and  with  scarcely  a  moment's  intermission,  from  heights  of  divine 
insight  into  depths  of  most  earthly  folly. 

"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan/" — the  very  words  which  He  had  used 
to  the  tempter  in  the  wilderness.  The  rebuke  was  strong,  yet  to  our 
ears  it  probably  conveys  a  meaning  far  more  violent  than  it  would  have 
done  to  the  ears  that  heard  it.  The  word  Satan  means  no  more  than 
"  adversary,"  and,  as  in  many  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  so  far 
from  meaning  the  great  Adversary  of  mankind,  that  it  is  even  applied  to 
opposing  angels.  The  word,  in  fact,  was  among  the  Jews,  as  in  the 
East  generally,  and  to  this  day,  a  very  common  one  for  anything  bold, 
powerful,  dangerous — for  every  secret  opponent  or  open  enemy.*     But  its 

1  Matt.  xvi.  22.     (Comp.  Mark  viii.  31,  32.) 

2  Such  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  Matt.  xvi.  22.  It  is  literally  "  [May  God  be]  merciful  to  thee," 
rather  than,  as  in  the  margin,  "  pity  thyself." 

3  "  Those  whose  intentions  towards  us  are  the  best,"  says  Stier,  "  are  the  most  dangerous  to  us  when 
their  intentions  are  merely  human."  How  often,  alas  !  are  a  man's  real  foes  they  of  his  own  household; 
his  friends,  who  love  him  best,  become  in  their  wordliness  his  worst  enemies.  They  drag  him  down  from 
heights  of  self-sacrifice  to  the  vulgar,  the  conventional,  the  comfortable. 

4  For  instance,  in  Numb.  xxii.  22,  32,  the  same  Hebrew  word  is  twice  used  of  the  angel  who  went  to 
withstand  Balaam  ;  in  i  Kings  xi.  14  it  is  used  of  Hadad,  and  in  verse  23  of  Rezon  ;  in  I  Sara.  xxix.  4  the 
Philistines  use  it  of  David.     See  too  Ps.  cix.  6,   marg.,  &c.     The  same  remark  is  true  of  the  Koran. 


THE  GREAT  CONFESSION.  349 

special  applicability  in  this  instance  arose  from  the  fact  that  Peter  was 
in  truth  adopting  the  very  line  of  argument  which  the  Tempter  himself 
had  adopted  in  the  wilderness.  And  in  calling  Peter  an  offense,  Jesus 
probably  again  alluded  to  his  name,  and  compared  him  to  a  stone  in  the 
path  over  which  the  wayfarer  stumbles.  The  comparison  must  have  sunk 
deeply  into  the  Apostle's  mind,  for  he  too  in  his  Epistle  warns  his 
readers  against  some  to  whom,  because  they  believe  not,  the  Headstone 
of  the  Corner  became  "a  stone  of  stumbling  and  a  rock  of  offense" 
(i  Pet.   ii.   8). 

But  having  thus  warned  and  rebuked  the  ignorant  affection  of  un- 
spiritual  effeminacy  in  His  presumptuous  Apostle,  the  Lord  graciously 
made  the  incident  an  occasion  for  some  of  His  deepest  teaching,  which 
He  not  only  addressed  to  His  disciples,  but  to  all'  We  learn  quite 
incidentally  from  St.  Mark,  that  even  in  these  remote  regions  His  foot- 
steps were  sometimes  followed  by  crowds,''  who  usually  walked  at  a  little 
distance  from  Him  and  His  disciples,  but  were  sometimes  called  to  Him 
to  hear  the  gracious  words  which  proceeded  out  of  His  mouth.  And 
alike  they  and  His  disciples  were  as  yet  infected  with  the  false  notions 
which  had  inspired  the  impetuous  interference  of  Peter.  To  them,  there- 
fore, He  addressed  the  words  which  have  taught  us  for  ever  that  the 
essence  of  all  highest  duty,  the  meaning  of  all  truest  life — alike  the  most 
acceptable  service  to  God,  and  the  most  ennobling  example  to  men — is 
involved  in  the  law  of  self-sacrifice.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  He 
spoke  those  few  words  which  have  produced  so  infinite  an  effect  on  the 
conscience  of  mankind.  "  What  is  a  man  profited,  if  he  shall  gain  the 
whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  soul?"  And  then,  after  warning  them  that  He  should 
Himself  be  judged,  He  consoled  them  under  this  shock  of  unexpected 
revelation  by  the  assurance  that  there  were  some  standing  there  who 
should  not  taste  of  death  till  they  had  seen  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in 
His  kingdom.  If,  as  all  Scripture  shows,  "the  kingdom  of  the  Son 
of  Man  "  be  understood  in  a  sense    primarily  spiritual,  then  there  can  be 

Among  the  Rabbis  are  to  be  found  such  expressions  as,  "  When  the  bull  rushes  at  a  man,  Satan  leaps  up 
between  his  horns."  They  always  drag  the  notion  in  when  they  can.  "  If  a  woman's  hair  is  uncovered,'' 
says  R.  Simeon,  "  evil  spirits  come  and  sit  upon  it."  "  '  If  that  young  Sheit  .  .  ,'  I  exclaimed,  about 
to  zise  an  epithet  generally  given  in  the  East  to  such  adventurous  yotttlis,"  &c.  (Layard's  Nineveh,  i.  2S7).  Layard 
adds  in  a  note  that  Sheitan  is  usually  applied  to  a  clever,  cunning,  daring  fellow. 

1  Luke  ix.  23. 

2  Cf.  Mark  viii.  34  ;  vii.  24. 


350  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

no  difficulty  in  understanding  this  prophecy  in  the  sense  that,  ere  all  of 
them  passed  away,  the  foundations  of  that  kingdom  should  have  been 
established  for  ever  in  the  abolition  of  the  old  and  the  establishment  of 
the  new  dispensation.  Three  of  them  were  immediately  to  see  Him 
transfigured;'  all  but  one  were  to  be  witnesses  of  His  resurrection;  one 
at  least — the  beloved  disciple — was  to  survive  that  capture  of  Jerusalem 
and  destruction  of  the  Temple  which  were  to  render  impossible  any  lit- 
eral fulfillment  of  the  Mosaic  law.  And  the  prophecy  may  have  deeper 
meanings  yet  than  these — meanings  still  more  real  because  they  are  still 
more  wholly  spiritual.  "If  we  wish  not  to  fear  death,"  says  St.  Ambrose, 
"let  us  stand  where  Christ  is;  Christ  is  your  Life;  He  is  the  very  Life 
which  cannot  die." 

I  The  translators  of  our  Bible  seem  to  have  understood  the  Transfiguration  as  the  first  fulfillment  of 
the  prophecy,  by  separating  it  from  the  verses  which  precede  it  in  St.  Mark  (ix.  i),  and  making  it  introduce 
the  following  narrative.  CI.  2  Pet.  i.  i6:  "eye-witnesses  of  His  majesty"  is  there  referred  expressly  to 
the  Transfiguration,  and  appealed  to  as  the  confirmation  of  the  preaching  which  had  proclaimed  "  the 
power  and  coming  "  of  Christ.    See,  too,  i  John  i.  I ;  iv.  14. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION. 


"And  this  voice  which  came  from  heaven  we  heard,  when  we  were  with  Him  in  the  holy  mount." 

^  — 2  Peter  i.  i8. 

ONE  of  the  Evangelists  tell  us  about  the  week 
which  followed  this  memorable  event.  They  tell 
us  only  that  "after  six  days"  He  took  with 
Him  the  three  dearest  and  most  enlightened  of 
His  disciples,'  and  went  with  them — the  expres- 
sion implies  a  certain  solemnity  of  expectation' — 
up  a  lofty  mountain,  or,  as  St.  Luke  calls  it, 
simply  '"the  mountain." 

The  supposition  that  the  mountain  intended 
was  Mount  Tabor  has  been  engrained  for 
centuries  in  the  tradition  of  the  Christian 
Church  ;  and  three  churches  and  a  monastery  erected  before 
the  close  of  the  sixth  century  attest  the  unhesitating  ac- 
ceptance of  this  belief.  Yet  it  is  almost  certain  that  Tabor 
was  not  the  scene  of  that  great  epiphany.  The  rounded 
summit  of  that  picturesque  and  wood-crowned  hill,  which  forms  so  fine  a 
feature  in  the  landscape,  as  the  traveler  approaches  the  northern  limit  of 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  had  probably  from  time  immemorial  been  a  forti- 
fied and  inhabited  spot,  and  less  than  thirty  years  after  this  time, 
Josephus,  on  this  very  mountain,  strengthened  the  existing  fortress  of 
Itaburion.  This,  therefore,  was  not  a  spot  to  which  Jesus  could  have 
taken  the  three  Apostles  "  apart  by  themselves."  Nor,  again,  is  there 
the  slightest  intimation  that  the  six  intervening  days  had  been  spent  in 
traveling  southwards  from  Caesarea  Philippi,  the  place  last  mentioned ;  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  distinctly  intimated  by  St.  Mark  (ix.  30),  that  Jesus 
did  not  "pass    through  Galilee"  (in  which    Mount  Tabor  is  situated)  till 

1  Matt.  xvii.  i — 13  ;  Mark  ix.  2 — 13  ;  Luke  ix.  28 — 36.  Tfie  "  about  eight  days  after"  of  St.  Luke  (ix. 
28)  is  merely  an  inclusive  reckoning,  but  is  one  of  the  touches  which  are  valuable  as  showing  the  inde- 
pendence of  his  narrative,  which  gives  us  several  new  particulars. 

2  Comp.  Luke  xxiv.  51. 


352  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

after  the  events  here  narrated.  Nor  again  does  the  comparatively  insig- 
nificant hill  Paneum,  which  is  close  by  Caesarea  Philippi,  fulfill  the  re- 
quirements of  the  narrative.  It  is,  therefore,  much  more  natural  to 
suppose  that  our  Lord,  anxious  to  traverse  the  Holy  Land  of  His  birth 
to  its  northern  limit,  journeyed  slowly  forward  till  He  reached  the  lower 
slopes  of  that  splendid  snow-clad  mountain,  whose  glittering  mass,  visible 
even  as  far  southward  as  the  Dead  Sea,  magnificently  closes  the  northern 
frontier  of  Palestine — the  Mount  Hermon  of  Jewirh  poetry.  Its  very 
name  means  "  the  mountain,"  and  the  scene  which  it  witnessed  would 
well  suffice  to  procure  for  it  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  mountain 
to  which  in  Scripture  is  attached  the  epithet  "holy."'  On  those  dewy 
pasturages,  cool  and  fresh  with  the  breath  of  the  snow-clad  heights  above 
them,  and  offering  that  noble  solitude,  among  the  grandest  scenes  of 
Nature,  which  He  desired  as  the  refreshment  of  His  soul  for  the  mighty 
struggle  which  was  now  so  soon  to  come,  Jesus  would  find  many  a  spot 
where  He  could  kneel  with   His  disciples  absorbed   in  silent  prayer. 

And  the  coolness  and  solitude  would  be  still  more  delicious  to  the 
weariness  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows  after  the  burning  heat  of  the  Eastern 
day  and  the  incessant  publicity  which,  even  in  these  remoter  regions, 
thronged  His  steps.  It  was  the  evening  hour  when  He  ascended, =  and 
as  He  climbed  the  hill-slope  with  those  three  chosen  witnesses — "the 
Sons  of  Thunder  and  the  Man  of  Rock " — doubtless  a  solemn  gladness 
dilated  His  whole  soul ;  a  sense  not  only  of  the  heavenly  calm  which 
that  solitary  communion  with  His  Heavenly  Father  would  breathe  upon 
the  spirit,  but  still  more  than  this,  a  sense  that  He  would  be  supported 
for  the  coming  hour  by  ministrations  not  of  earth,  and  illuminated  with  a 
light  which  needed  no  aid  from  sun  or  moon  or  stars.  He  went  up  to 
be  prepared  for  death,  and  He  took  His  three  Apostles  with  Him  that, 
haply,  having  seen  His  glory — the  glory  of  the  only  Begotten  of  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth — their  hearts  might  be  fortified,  their 
faith  strengthened,  to  gaze  unshaken  on  the  shameful  insults  and  un- 
speakable humiliation  of  the  cross. 

There,  then,  He  knelt  and  prayed,  and  as  He  prayed  He  was  ele- 
vated far  above  the  toil  and  misery  of  the  world  which  had  rejected 
Him.  He  was  transfigured  before  them,  and  His  countenance  shone  as 
the  sun,  and  His  garments  became  white  as  the  dazzling  snow-fields 
above    them.      He    was    enwrapped     in     such     an    aureole    of    glistering 

1  2  Peter  i.  i8. 

2  This  is  evident  from  Luke  ix.  32,  37,  especially  when  compared  with  Luke  vi.  12. 


JESUS   LEADS  THE  BLIND. — Mark  viii.  22. 


THF    TRAN'^FIGliRATION    OF    rilRTST  — laiVe  ix,  28. 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION.  353 

brilliance — His  whole  presence  breathed  so  divine  a  radiance — that  tne  light, 
the  snow,  the  lightning '  are  the  only  things  to  which  the  Evangelist 
can  compare  that  celestial  luster.  And,  lo !  two  figures  were  by  His 
side.'  "When,  in  the  desert,  He  was  girding  Himself  for  the  work  of 
life,  angels  of  life  came  and  ministered  unto  Him;  now,  in  the  fair  world, 
when  He  is  girding  Himself  for  the  work  of  death,  the  ministrants  come 
to  Him  from  the  grave — but  from  the  grave  conquered — one  from  that 
tomb  under  Abarim,  which  His  own  hand  had  sealed  long  ago  ;  the 
other  from  the  rest  into  which  he  had  entered  without  seeing  corruption. 
There  stood  by  Him  Moses  and  Elias,  and  spake  of  His  decease.  And 
when  the  prayer  is  ended,  the  task  accepted,  then  first  since  the  star 
paused  over  Him  at  Bethlehem,  the  full  glory  falls  upon  Him  from 
heaven,  and  the  testimony  is  borne  to  His  everlasting  sonship  and  power 
— 'Hear  ye  Him.'" 

It  is  clear,  from  the  fuller  narrative  of  St.  Luke,  that  the  three  Apos- 
tles did  not  witness  the  beginning  of  this  marvelous  transfiguration. 
An  oriental,  when  his  prayers  are  over,  wraps  himself  in  his  abba,'  and, 
lying  down  on  the  grass  in  the  open  air,  sinks  in  a  moment  into  pro- 
found sleep.  And  the  Apostles,  as  afterwards  they  slept  at  Gethsemane, 
so  now  they  sleep  on  Hermon.  They  were  heavy,  "weighed  down  "  with 
sleep,  when  suddenly  starting  into  full  wakefulness  of  spirit,  they  saw 
and  heard.* 

In  the  darkness  of  the  night,  shedding  an  intense  gleam  over  the 
mountain  herbage,  shone  the  glorified  form  of  their  Lord.  Beside  Him, 
in  the  same  flood  of  golden  glory, =  were  two  awful  shapes,  which  they 
knew  or  heard  to  be  Moses  and  Elijah.  And  the  Three  spake  together, 
in  the  stillness,  of  that  coming  decease  at  Jerusalem,  about  which  they 
had  just  been  forewarned  by  Christ. 

1  Matt.  xvii.  2;  Mark  ix.  3;  Luke  ix.  29.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  St.  Luke,  writing  for 
Greeks  and  Romans,  avoids  the  word  "  metamorphosed,"  used  by  the  other  Evangelists,  because  his 
readers  would  associate  that  word  with  the  conceptions  with  which  they  were  familiar  in  Nicander,  Anto- 
ninus Liberalis,  and  Ovid. 

2  "  And  lo  !  "  of  Matt,  xvii.  3  shows  how  intense  was  the  impression  which  the  scene  had  made  on  the 
imagination  of  those  who  witnessed  it.  "  The  two  who  appeared  to  Him  were  the  representatives  of  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets  :  both  had  been  removed  from  this  world  in  a  mysterious  manner  ;  .  .  .  . 
both,  like  the  greater  One  with  whom  they  spoke,  had  endured  that  supernatural  fast  of  forty  days  and 
nights  ;  both  had  been  on  the  holy  mount  in  the  visions  of  God.  And  now  they  came,  solemnly,  to  con- 
sign into  His  hands,  once  and  for  all,  in  a  symbolical  and  glorious  representation,  their  delegated  anjl 
expiring  power." 

3  Hence  the  merciful  provision  of  the  Mosaic  law,  that  the  outer  robe  was  to  be  restored  at  night  if 
taken  as  a  pledge  for  debt.     (See  Exod.  xxii.  26.) 

4  So  I  would  render  "suddenly  waking  up,"  in  Luke  ix.  32. 

5  Luke  ix.  31. 
23 


354  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

And  as  the  splendid  vision"  began  to  fade — as  the  majestic  visitants 
were  about  to  be  separated  from  their  Lord,  as  their  Lord  Himself 
*  passed  with  them  into  the  overshadowing  brightness — Peter,  anxious  to 
delay  their  presence,  amazed,  startled,  transported,  not  knowing  what  he 
said" — not  knowing  that  Calvary  would  be  a  spectacle  infinitely  more 
transcendent  than  Hermon — not  knowing  that  the  Law  and  the  Prophets 
were  now  fulfilled — not  fully  knowing  that  His  Lord  was  unspeakably 
greater  than  the  Prophet  of  Sinai  and  the  Avenger  of  Carmel — exclaimed, 
"Rabbi,  it  is  best  for  us  to  be  here;^  and  let  us  make  three  tabernacles, 
one  for  thee,  and  one  for  Moses,  and  one  for  Elias."  Jesus  might  have 
smiled  at  the  naive  proposal  of  the  eager  Apostle,  that  they  six  should 
dwell  forever  in  little  sitccoth  of  wattled  boughs  on  the  slopes  of  Hermon. 
But  it  was  not  for  Peter  to  construct  the  universe  for  his  personal  satis- 
faction. He  had  to  learn  the  meaning  of  Calvary  no  less  than  that  of 
Hermon.  Not  in  cloud  of  glory  or  chariot  of  fire  was  Jesus  to  pass 
away  from  them,  but  with  arms  outstretched  in  agony  upon  the  accursed 
tree;  not  between  Moses  and  Elias,  but  between  two  thieves,  who  "were 
crucified  with  Him,  on  either  side  one." 

No  answer  was  vouchsafed  to  his  wild  and  dreamy  words  ;  but,  even 
as  he  spake,  a  cloud — not  a  cloud  of  thick  darkness  as  at  Sinai,  but  a 
cloud  of  light,  a  Shechlnah  of  radiance — overshadowed  them,  and  a  voice 
from  out  of  it  uttered,  "This  is  my  beloved  Son;  hear  Him."  They 
fell  prostrate,  and  hid  their  faces  on  the  grass.*  And  as — awaking  from 
the  overwhelming  shock  of  that  awful  voice,  of  that  enfolding  Light — 
they  raised  their  eyes  and   gazed   suddenly  all  around  them,^  they  found 

1  "  The  vision  "  (Matt.  xvii.  9).  The  word,  which  occurs  eleven  times  in  the  Acts,  but  not  elsewhere 
in  the  N.  T.,  is  applied  to  dreams  (Acts  xvi.  10 ;  xviii.  9)  and  ecstasies  (Acts  xi.  5),  but  also  to  any  impres- 
sion on  the  spirit  which  is  as  clear  as  an  impression  on  the  senses  (Acts  vii.  31). 

2  This  touch  in  all  probability  comes  to  us  from  St.  Peter  himself  (Mark  ix.  6). 

3  "  Good  "  in  the  New  Testament  seems  sometimes  to  have  a  superlative  sense.  Cf.  Matt,  xviii.  8  ; 
xxvi.  24,  &c. 

4  Matt.  xvii.  6. 

5  Mark  ix.  8  (cf.  Matt.  xvii.  8),  one  of  the  many  inimitably  graphic  touches  of  truthfulness  and 
simplicity — touches  never  yet  found  in  any  "myth"  since  the  world  began — with  which  in  all  three 
Evangelists  this  narrative  abounds.  We  have  proofs  that  on  two  of  the  three  spectators  this  scene  made 
an  indelible  impression.  St.  John  most  clearly  alludes  to  it  in  John  i.  14  ;  i  John  i.  i.  St.  Peter  (if,  as  I 
believe,  the  Second  Epistle  is  genuine)  is  dwelling  on  it  in  2  Peter  i.  in  a  manner  all  the  more  striking 
because  it  is  partly  unconscious.  Thus,  he  not  only  appeals  to  it  in  confirmation  of  his  preaching,  but  he 
uses  just  before  the  unusual  word  "departure"  for  'death"  [2  Peter  i.  I5(cf.  Luke  ix.  31) :  it  is,  however, 
possible  that  "glory  '  may  here  be  the  reading,  as  it  seems  to  have  been  read  by  St.  Chrysostom],  and 
immediately  after  speaks  (ver.  19)  of  'alight  shining  in  a  dark  place,"  and  immediately  preceding  the 
dawn — which  is  another,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  hitherto  unnoticed  trace  of  the  fact  that  the  Trans- 
figuration (of  which  the  writer's  mind  is  here  so  full)  took  place  by  night.  On  the  word  "departure" 
Bengel    finely    remarks,     "A    very    weighty   word,    involving  the  passion,  cross,  death,    resurrection. 


THE  TRANSFIGURATION.  3^5 

that  all  was  over.  The  bright  cloud  had  vanished.  The  lightning-like 
gleams  of  shining  countenances  and  dazzling  robes  had  passed  away , 
they  were  alone  with  Jesus,  and  only  the  stars  rained  their  quiet  luster 
on  the  mountain  slopes. 

At  first  they  were  afraid  to  rise  or  stir,  but  Jesus,  their  Master — as 
they  had  seen  Him  before  He  knelt  in  prayer— came  to  them,  touched 
them,  said,   "Arise,  and  be  not  afraid." 

And  so  the  day  dawned  on  Hermon,  and  they  descended  the  hill; 
and  as  they  descended,  He  bade  them  tell  no  man  until  He  had  risen 
from  the  dead.  The  vision  was  for  them  ;  it  was  to  be  pondered  over 
by  them  in  the  depths  of  their  own  hearts  in  self-denying  reticence  ;  to 
announce  it  to  their  fellow-disciples  might  only  awake  their  jealousy  and 
their  own  self-satisfaction  ;  until  the  resurrection  it  would  add  nothing  to 
the  faith  of  others,  and  might  only  confuse  their  conceptions  of  what 
was  to  be  His  work  on  earth.  They  kept  Christ's  command,  but  they 
could  not  attach  any  meaning  to  this  allusion.  They  could  only 
ask  each  other,  or  muse  in  silence,  what  this  resurrection  from 
the  dead  could  mean.  And  another  serious  question  weighed  upon 
their  spirits.  They  had  seen  Elias.  They  now  knew  more  fully  than 
ever  that  their  Lord  was  indeed  the  Christ.  Yet  "how  say  the  Scribes" 
— and  had  not  the  Scribes  the  prophecy  of  Malachi  in  their  favor?' — 
"that  Elias  must  first  come  and  restore  all  things?"  And  then  our 
Lord  gently  led  them  to  see  that  Elias  indeed  had  come,  and  had  not 
been  recognized,  and  had  received  at  the  hand  of  his  nation  the  same 
fate  which  was  soon  to  happen  to  Him  whom  he  announced.  Then 
understood  they  that  He  spake  to  them  of  John  the  Baptist.'' 

ascension."  Archbishop  Trench  aptly  says  that  St.  Peter  by  the  word  "  eye-witness  "  (2  Peter  i.  16)  seems  to 
itnply  a  sort  of  initiation  into  holy  mysteries.  Many  have  resolved  the  narrative  of  the  Transfiguration 
into  a  myth  ;  it  is  remarkable  that,  in  this  verse,  St.  Peter  is  expressly  repudiating  the  very  kind  of  myths 
("  myths  artificially  elaborated  ")  under  which  this  would  be  classed. 

1  Mai.  iv.  5. 

2  Luke  i.  17,  "  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias  ;"  cf.  Matt.  xi.  10.  The  Jewish  expectation  of  Elias  is 
well  known.  A  thing  of  unknown  ownership  may  be  kept  by  the  finder  "  till  the  coming  of  Elias."  He 
was  to  restore  to  the  Jews  the  pot  of  manna,  the  rod  of  Aaron,  &c.,  and  his  coming  generally  was  to  be  "  a 
time  of  restoration  "  (cf .  Acts.  iii.  21). 


CHAPTER    XXXVII. 


THE    DEMONIAC    BOY. 


^"i. 


"  But  some  say  that  His  countenance,  having  become  more  lovely  from  the  light     .      .      .     was  attracting 

the  multitude." 

HE  imagination  of  all  readers  of  the  Gospels 
has  been  struck  by  the  contrast — a  contrast 
seized  and  immortalized  for  ever  in  the  great 
picture  of  Raphael — between  the  peace,  the 
glory,  the  heavenly  communion  on  the  mountain 
heights,  and  the  confusion,  the  rage,  the  unbe- 
lief, the  agony  which  marked  the  first  scene 
that  met  the  eyes  of  Jesus  and  His  Apostles 
on  their  descent  to  the  low  levels  of  human 
life.' 

For  in  their  absence  an  event   had  occurred 

which    filled    the    other    disciples  with    agitation 

and   alarm.      They  saw  a  crowd  assembled  and 

'"       "  Scribes    among    them,    who    with    disputes    and 

victorious    innuendoes  were    pressing    hard    upon  the  diminished  band  of 

Christ's  chosen  friends.' 

Suddenly  at  this  crisis  the  multitude  caught  sight  of  Jesus.  Some- 
thing about  His  appearance,  some  unusual  majesty,  some  lingering  radi- 
ance, filled  them  with  amazement,  and  they  ran  up  to  Him  with  saluta- 
tions.3  "What  is  your  dispute  with  them?"  He  sternly  asked  of  the 
Scribes.  But  the  Scribes  were  too  much  abashed,  the  disciples  were  too 
self-conscious  of  their  faithlessness  and  failure,  to  venture  on  any  reply. 
Then  out  of  the  crowd  struggled  a  man,  who,  kneeling  before  Jesus, 
cried  out,  in  a  loud  voice,*  that  he  was  the  father  of  an  only  son  whose 
demoniac  possession  was  shown  by  epilepsy,  in  its  most  raging  symptoms, 

1  Matt.  xvii.  14 — 21  ;  Mark  ix.  14 — 2g  ;  Luke  ix.  37 — 45. 

2  There  were,  of  course,  many  Jews,  and  therefore  naturally  there  would  be  Scribes,  in   the   kingdom 
of  Philip. 

3  Mark  ix.   14.     We  here  follow  mainly  the  full  and  vivid  narrative  of  St.  Mark. 

4  Matt.  xvii.  14  ;  Luke  ix.  38. 

3SS 


THE  DEMONIAC  BOY.  357 

accompanied  by  dumbness,  atrophy,  and  a  suicidal  mania.  He  had 
brought  the  miserable  sufferer  to  the  disciples  to  cast  out  the  evil  spirit, 
but  their  failure  had  occasioned  the  taunts  of  the  Scribes. 

The  whole  scene  grieved  Jesus  to  the  heart.  "  O  faithless  and  per- 
verse generation,"  He  exclaimed,  "how  long  shall  I  be  with  you?  how 
long  shall  I  suffer  you  ?"  This  cry  of  His  indignation  seemed  meant 
for  all — for  the  merely  curious  multitude,  for  the  malicious  Scribes,  for 
the  half-believing  and  faltering  disciples.     "  Bring  him  hither  to  me." 

The  poor  boy  was  brought,  and  no  sooner  had  his  eye  fallen  on 
Jesus,  than  he  was  seized  with  another  paroxysm  of  his  malady.  He  fell 
on  the  ground  in  violent  convulsions,  and  rolled  there  with  foaming  lips. 
It  was  the  most  deadly  and  intense  form  of  epileptic  lunacy  on  which 
our  Lord  had  ever  been  called  to  take  compassion.' 

He  paused  before  He  acted.  He  would  impress  the  scene  in  all  its 
horror  on  the  thronging  multitude,  that  they  might  understand  that  the 
failure  was  not  of  Him.  He  would  at  the  same  time  invoke,  educe,  con- 
firm the  wavering  faith  of  the  agonized  suppliant. 

"How  long  has  this  happened  to  him?" 

"  From  childhood  :  and  often  hath  it  flung  him  both  into  fire  and 
into  water  to  destroy  him  ;  but  if  at  all  thou  canst,  take  pity  on  us  and 
help  us." 

"  If  thou  cafistf"'  answered  Jesus — giving  him  back  his  own  word — • 
"all  things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth." 

And  then  the  poor  hapless  father  broke  out  into  that  cry,  uttered  by 
so  many  millions  since,  and  so  deeply  applicable  to  an  age  which,  like 
our  own,  has  been  described  as  "destitute  of  faith,  yet  terrified  at 
skepticism" — "Lord,  I  believe ;  help  thou  mine  taibclicf" 

Meanwhile,  during  this  short  colloquy,  the  crowd  had  been  gathering 
more  and  more,  and  Jesus,  turning  to  the  sufferer,  said,  "  Dumb  and  deaf 
spirit,  I  charge  thee,  come  out  of  him,  and  enter  no  more  into  him."  A 
yet  wilder  cry,  a  yet  more  fearful  convulsion  followed  His  words,  and 
then  the  boy  lay  on  the  ground,  no  longer  wallowing  and  foaming,  but 
still  as  death.  Some  said,  "  He  is  dead."  But  Jesus  took  him  by  the 
hand,  and  amid  the  amazed  exclamations  of  the  multitude,  restored  him 
to  his  father,  calm  and  cured. 

Jesus  had  previously  given  to  His  disciples  the  power  of  casting  out 

X  Matt.  xvii.  15. 

2  This  seems  to  be  the  force  of  Mark  ix.  23. 


358  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

devils,  and  this  power  was  even  exercised  in  His  name  by  some  who  were 
not  among  His  professed  disciples.'  Nor  had  they  ever  failed  before.  It 
was  therefore  natural  that  they  should  take  the  first  private  opportunity 
to  ask  Him  the  cause  of  their  discomfiture.  He  told  them  frankly  that  it 
was  because  of  their  unbelief.  It  may  be  that  the  sense  of  His  absence 
weakened  them ;  it  may  be  that  they  felt  less  able  to  cope  with  difficulties 
while  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee  were  also  away  from  them ;  it  may 
be,  too,  that  the  sad  prophecy  of  His  rejection  and  death  had  worked 
with  sinister  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  weakest  of  them.  But,  at  any 
rate,  He  took  this  opportunity  to  teach  them  two  great  lessons :  the  one, 
that  there  are  forms  of  spiritual,  physical,  and  moral  evil  so  intense  and 
so  inveterate,  that  they  can  only  be  exorcised  by  prayer,  united  to  that 
self-control  and  self-denial  of  which  fasting  is  the  most  effectual  and  strik- 
ing symbol;'  the  other,  that  to  a  perfect  faith  all  things  are  possible. 
Faith,  like  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  could  even  say  to  Harmon  itself, ' 
"  Be  thou  removed,  and  cast  into  the  waves  of  the  Great  Sea,  and  it 
should  obey." 

Jesus  had  now  wandered  to  the  utmost  northern  limit  of  the  Holy  Land, 
and  He  began  to  turn  His  steps  homewards.  We  see  from  St.  Mark  that 
His  return  was  designedly  secret  and  secluded,  and  possibly  not  along  the 
high  roads,  but  rather  through  the  hills  and  valleys  of  Upper  Galilee  to  the 
westward  of  the  Jordan.  His  object  was  no  longer  to  teach  the  multi- 
tudes who  had  been  seduced  into  rejecting  Him,  and  among  whom  He 
could  hardly  appear  in  safety,  but  to  continue  that  other  and  even  more 
essential  part  of  His  work,  which  consisted  in  the  training  of  His 
Apostles.  And  now  the  constant  subject  of  His  teaching"  was  His  ap- 
proaching betrayal,  murder,  and  resurrection.  But  He  spoke  to  dull 
hearts  ;  in  their  deep-seated  prejudice  they  ignored  His  clear  warnings, 
in  their  faithless  timidity  they  would  not  ask  for  further  enlightenment. 
"We  cannot  see  more  strikingly  how  vast  was  the  change  which  the  resur- 
rection wrought  in  them  than  by  observing  with  what  simple  truthfulness 
they  record  the  extent  and  inveteracy  of  their  own  shortcomings,  during 
those  precious  days  while  the  Lord  was  yet  among  them. 

I.   Mark  ix.  38. 

2  The  words  "and  fasting,"  in  Mark  ix.  29,  and  the  entire  verse  Luke  ix.  21,  are  of  very  doubtful 
genuineness. 

3  •■  Removing  mountains"  was  among  the  Jews  a  common  hyperbole  for  rhe  co""i"—  "f  stupendous 
difficulties.    A  great  teacher  was  called  by  the  Rabbis  "uprooter  of  mountains." 

4  Mark  ix.  31. 


THE  DEMONIAC  BOY.  359 

The  one  thing  which  they  did  seem  to  realize  was  that  some  strange 
and  memorable  issue  of  Christ's  life,  accompanied  by  some  great  develop- 
ment of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  was  at  hand  ;  and  this  unhappily  pro- 
duced the  only  effect  in  them  which  it  should  not  have  produced.  Instead 
of  stimulating  their  self-denial,  it  awoke  their  ambition  ;  instead  of  con- 
firming their  love  and  humility,  it  stirred  them  up  to  jealousy  and  pride. 
On  the  road — remembering,  perhaps,  the  preference  which  had  been 
shown  at  Hermon  to  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee — they  disputed 
among  themselves,   "Which  should  be  the  greatest?" 

At  the  time  our  Lord  took  no  notice  of  the  dispute.  He  left  their 
own  consciences  to  work.  But  when  they  reached  Capernaum  and  were 
in  the  house,  then  He  asked  them,  "What  they  had  been  disputing 
about  on  the  way?"'  Deep  shame  kept  them  silent,  and  that  silence 
was  the  most  eloquent  confession  of  their  sinful  ambitions.  Then  He  sat 
down,  and  taught  them  again,  as  He  had  done  so  often,  that  he  who  would 
be  first  must  be  last  of  all,  and  servant  of  all,  and  that  the  road  to  honor 
is  humility.  And  wishing  to  enforce  this  lesson  by  a  symbol  of  exquisite 
tenderness  and  beauty,  He  called  to  Him  a  little  child,  and  set  it  in  the 
midst,  and  then,  folding  it  in  His  arms,  warned  them  that  unless  they 
could  become  as  humble  as  that  little  child,  they  could  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.^  They  were  to  be  as  children  in  the  world  ;  and 
he  who  should  receive  even  one  such  little  child  in  Christ's  name,  should 
be  receiving  Him,  and  the  Father  who  sent   Him. 

The  expression  "in  my  name"  seems  to  have  suggested  to  St.  John 
a  sudden  question,  which  broke  the  thread  of  Christ's  discourse.  They 
had  seen,  he  said,  a  man  who  was  casting  out  devils  in  Christ's  name ; 
but  since  the  man  was  not  one  of  them,  they  had  forbidden  him.  Had 
they  done  right  ?3 

"No,"  Jesus  answered;  "let  the  prohibition  be  removed."  He  who 
could  do  works  of  mercy  in  Christ's  name  could  not  lightly  speak  evil  of 

1  See,  for  what  follows,  Matt,  xviii.  i — 35  ;  Mark  ix.  33 — 50  ;  Luke  ix.  46 — 50  ;  which  three  passages  I 
assume  to  be  one  and  the  same  continuous  discourse  suggested  by  the  same  incidents,  but  told  with  vary- 
ing completeness  by  the  three  Evangelists. 

2  The  impossible  tradition — mentioned  by  Nicephorus — that  this  was  the  martyr  St.  Ignatius,  perhaps 
arose  from  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  his  name  "  God-bearer,"  as  though  it  had  been  "  God-borne  ; "  but 
this  name  was  derived  from  his  celebrated  interview  with  Trajan. 

3  Bruce  quotes  an  apt  illustration  from  the  life  of  Baxter,  whose  followers  condemned  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  as  unconverted,  because  he  did  not  attend  their  weekly  prayer  meetings  !  "  I,"  said  Baxter,  .... 
"  that  have  seen  his  love  to  all  good  men,  and  the  blamelessness  of  his  life,  thought  better  of  his  piety 
than  of  mine  own." 


36c  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

that  naii.e.  He  who  was  not  against  them  was  with  them.  Sometimes 
indifference  is  opposition  ;  sometimes  neutraHty  is  aid. 

And  then,  gently  resuming  His  discourse— the  child  yet  nestling  in 
His  arms,  and  furnishing  the  text  for  His  remarks — He  warned  them  of 
the  awful  guilt  and  peril  of  offending,  of  tempting,  of  misleading,  of 
seducing  from  the  paths  of  innocence  and  righteousness,  of  teaching  any 
wicked  thing,  or  suggesting  any  wicked  thought  to  one  of  those  little 
ones,  whose  angels  see  the  face  of  His  Father  in  heaven.  Such  wicked 
men  and  seducers,  such  human  performers  of  the  devil's  work — address- 
ing them  in  words  of  more  bitter,  crushing  import  than  any  which  He 
ever  uttered — a  worse  fate.  He  said,  awaited  them,  than  to  be  flung  with 
the  heaviest  millstone  round   their  neck  into  the  sea." 

And  He  goes  on  to  warn  them  that  no  sacrifice  could  be  too  great  if  it 
enabled  them  to  escape  any  possible  temptations  to  put  such  stumbling-blocks 
in  the  way  of  their  own  souls,  or  the  souls  of  others.  Better  cut  off  the  right 
hand,  and  enter  heaven  maimed — better  hew  off  the  right  foot,  and  enter 
heaven  halt — better  tear  out  the  right  eye,  and  enter  heaven  blind — than 
suffer  hand  or  foot  or  eye  to  be  the  ministers  of  sins  which  should  feed 
the  undying  worm  or  kindle  the  quenchless  flame.  Better  be  drowned 
in  this  world  with  a  millstone  round  the  neck,  than  carry  that  moral  and 
spiritual  millstone  of  unresisted  temptation  which  can  drown  the  guilty 
soul  in  the  fiery  lake  of  alienation  and  despair.  For  just  as  salt  is 
sprinkled  over  every  sacrifice  for  its  purification,  so  must  every  soul  be 
purged  by  salt,  or  by  fire,  or  by  both  :  by  the  salt  of  God's  truth  freely 
applied  to  the  soul  by  the  reason  and  the  conscience  ;  or,  if  not,  then 
by  the  fire  or  God's  afflicting  judgments, — the  fire  which  purges,  and  so 
saves  from  the  second  and  worse  fire,  which  consumes.  Let  this  refining, 
purging,  purifying  salt  of  searching  self-judgment  and  self-severity  be 
theirs.  Let  not  this  salt  lose  its  savor,  lest  they  should  need  the  more 
agonizing  purge  of  God's  dross-destroying  fire.  "  Have  salt  in  your- 
selves, and  be  at  peace  with  one  another."' 

And  thus,  at  once  to  confirm  the  duty  of  this  mutual  peace  which 
they  had  violated,  and  to  show  them  that,  however  deeply  rooted  be 
God's  anger  against  those  who  lead  others  astray,  they  must  never  cher- 
ish   hatred    even    against    those  who    had    most    deeply  injured  them,   He 

1  "  Ass  millstone  "  (Matt,  xviii.  6  ;  Luke  xvii.  2).     The  reckem,  or  runnerstone,  i.e.,  the  upper  millstone, 
so  heavy  as  to  be  turned  by  an  ass. 

2  Isa.  xxxiii.  14.  15.     We  are  again  reminded  of  that  fine  saying  already  quoted,  "  He  who  is  near  me, 
is  near  the  fire." 


THE  DEMONIAC  BOY.  3^1 

taught  them  how,  first  by  private  expostulation,  then  if  necessary  by 
public  appeal,  at  once  most  gently  and  most  effectually  to  deal  with  a.v 
offending  brother.  Peter,  in  the  true  spirit  of  Judaic  formalism,  wanted 
a  specific  limit  to  the  number  of  times  when  forgiveness  should  be 
granted  ;  but  Jesus  taught  that  the  times  of  forgiveness  should  be  prac- 
tically unlimited."  He  illustrated  that  teaching  by  the  beautiful  parable 
of  the  servant,  who,  having  been  forgiven  by  his  king  a  debt  of  ten 
thousand  talents,  immediately  afterwards  seized  his  fellow-servant  by  the 
throat,  and  would  not  forgive  him  a  miserable  little  debt  of  one  hundred 
pence,  a  sum  i,250,cx)0  times  smaller  than  that  which  he  himself  had  been 
forgiven.  The  child  whom  Jesus  had  held  in  His  arms  might  have  under- 
stood that  moral ;  yet  how  infinitely  more  deep  must  its  meaning  be  to 
us — who  have  been  trained  from  childhood  in  the  knowledge  of  His 
atoning  love — than  it  could  have  been,  at  the  time  when  it  was  spoken, 
to  even  a  Peter  or  a  John. 

I  The  Rabbinic  rule  only  admitted  a  triple  forgiveness,  referring  to  Amos  i.  3  ;  Job  xxziii.  2g  (marg., 
"twice"  and  "thrice"). 


CHAPTER     XXXVIII. 


A    BRIEF    REST    IN    CAPERNAUM. 


"Go  and  know  that  we  are,  in  another  kingdom,  kings  and  sons  of  a  king." — Luther. 

>^gl.O^^   ..,,1. S?..o 

"  T^ 

NE  more  incident,  related  by  St.  Matthew 
only,  marked  His  brief  stay  on  this  occasion  in 
Capernaum. 

From  time  immemorial  there  was  a  precedent 
for  collecting,  at  least  occasionally,  on  the  recur- 
rence of  every  census,  a  tax  of  "  half  a  shekel, 
after  the  shekel  of  the  sanctuary,"  of  every  Jew 
who  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty  years,  as  a 
"ransom  for  his  soul,"  unto  the  Lord."  This 
money  was  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  Temple, 
and  was  expended  on  the  purchase  of  the  sacri- 
fices, scapegoats,  red  heifers,  incense,  shewbread, 
and  other  expenses  of  the  Temple  service.  After 
the  return  from  the  captivity,  this  bekah,  or  half- 
shekel,  became  a  voluntary  annual  tax  of  a  third  of  a  shekel;'  but  at 
some  subsequent  period  it  had  again  returned  to  its  original  amount. 
This  tax  was  paid  by  every  Jew  in  every  part  of  the  world,  whether 
rich  or  poor  ;  and,  as  on  the  first  occasion  of  its  payment,  to  show  that 
the  souls  of  all  alike  are  equal  before  God,  "the  rich  paid  no  more,  and 
the  poor  no  less."  It  produced  vast  sums  of  money,  which  were  con- 
veyed to  Jerusalem  by  honorable  messengers.^ 

This  tax  was  only  so  far  compulsory  that  when  first  demanded,  on 
the  I  St  of  Adar,  the  demand  was  made  quietly  and  civilly;  if,  however, 
it  had  not  been  paid  by  the  25th,  then  it  seems  that  the  collectors  of 
the  contributions  {tobhin  shekaliin)  might  take  a  security  for  it  from  the 
defaulter. 

1  Exod.  XXX.  II — 16.     The  English   "tribute-money"   is  vague  and  incorrect;  (or  the  tribute  was  a 
denarius  paid  to  the  Roman  emperor. 

2  Neh.  X.  32. 

3  Taking  the  shekel  roughly  at  36  cents,  the  collection  would  produce  375,000  dollars  for  every  million 
contributors. 

36a 


A  BRIEF  REST  IN  CAPERNAUM.  363 

Accordingly,  almost  immediately  upon  our  Lord's  return  to  Caper- 
naum, these  tobhi7i  shekalim  came  to  St.  Peter,  and  asked  him,  quite 
civilly,  as  the  Rabbis  had  directed,  "  Does  not  your  master  pay  the 
didrachmas  ?"' 

The  question  suggests  two  difficulties — viz.,  Why  had  our  Lord  not 
been  asked  for  this  contribution  in  previous  years  ?  and  why  was  it  now 
demanded  in  autumn,  at  the  approach  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  in- 
stead of  in  the  month  Adar,  some  six  months  earlier  ?  The  answers 
seem  to  be  that  priests  and  eminent  rabbis  were  regarded  as  exempt 
from  the  tax ;  that  our  Lord's  frequent  absence  from  Capernaum  had 
caused  some  irregularity ;  and  that  it  was  permitted  to  pay  arrears  some 
time  afterwards.'' 

The  fact  that  the  collectors  inquired  of  St.  Peter  instead  of  asking 
Jesus  Himself,  is  another  of  the  very  numerous  indications  of  the  awe 
which  He  inspired  even  into  the  heart  of  His  bitterest  enemies;  as  in  all 
probability  the  fact  of  the  demand  being  made  at  all  shows  a  growing 
desire  to  vex  His  life  and  to  ignore  His  dignity.  But  Peter,  with  his 
usual  impetuous  readiness,  without  waiting,  as  he  should  have  done,  to 
consult  his  Master,  replied,  "Yes."^ 

If  he  had  thought  a  moment  longer — if  he  had  known  a  little  more — 
if  he  had  even  recalled  his  own  great  confession  so  recently  given — his 
answer  might  not  have  come  so  glibly.  This  money  was,  at  any  rate,  in 
its  original  significance,  a  redemption-money  for  the  soul  of  each  man  ;* 
and  how  could  the  Redeemer,  who  redeemed  all  souls  by  the  ransom  of 
His  life,  pay  this  money-ransom  for  His  own?  And  it  was  a  tax  for 
the  Temple  services.  How,  then,  could  it  be  due  from  Him  whose  own 
mortal  body  was  the  new  spiritual  Temple  of  the  Living  God  ?  He  was 
to  enter  the  vail  of  the  Holiest  with  the  ransom  of  His  own  blood. 
But  He  paid  what  He  did  not  owe,  to  save  us  from  that  which  we  owed, 
but  could  never  pay.' 

1  The  didrachmum  was  a  Greek  coin  exactly  equivalent  to  half  a  shekel  ;  the  stater  or  silver  tetra- 
drachmum  was  a  shekel.  The  stater  and  the  Roman  denarius  (which  was  rather  more  than  a  fourth  of  its 
value)  were  the  two  common  coins  at  this  time  ;  the  actual  didrachm  had  fallen  into  disuse. 

2  There  even  seems  to  be  some  evidence  to  show  that  it  might  be  paid  at  either  of  the  yearly  feasts. 

3  It  appears  that  there  had  been  a  great  dispute  between  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  as  to  whether 
this  tax  should  be  voluntary  or  compulsory,  and  that,  after  long  debate,  the  Pharisees  had  carried  the  day. 
Perhaps,  therefore,  the  demand  was  made  of  our  Lord  by  way  of  testing  which  side  He  would  take,  and  if 
so  we  may  understand  His  words  to  St.  Peter  as  sanctioning  the  universal  principle  that  all  gifts  to  God 
should  be  given  "  not  grudgingly  or  of  necessity." 

4  Exod.  XXX.  II,  12. 

5  Cf.  Ps.  Ixix.  5. 


364  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Accordingly,  when  Peter  entered  the  house,  conscious,  perhaps,  by  this 
time,  that  his  answer  had  been  premature — perhaps  also  conscious  that  at 
that  moment*  there  were  no  means  of  meeting  even  this  small  demand 
upon  their  scanty  store — Jesus,  without  waiting  for  any  expression  of  his 
embarrassment,  at  once  said  to  him,  "  What  thinkest  thou,  Simon  ?  the 
kings  of  the  earth,  from  whom  do  they  take  tolls  and  taxes  ?  from  their 
own  sons,  or  from  those  who  are  not  their  children  ?" 

There  could  be  but  one  answer — -"  From  those  who  are  not  their 
children." 

''Then,"  said  Jesus,  "the  sons  are  free."  I,  the  Son  of  the  Great  King, 
and  even  thou,  who  art  also  His  son,  though  in  a  different  way,  are  not 
bound  to  pay  this  tax.  If  we  pay  it,  the  payment  must  be  a  matter,  not 
of  positive  obligation,  as  the  Pharisees  have  lately  decided,  but  of  free  and 
cheerful  giving. 

There  is  something  beautiful  and  even  playful  in  this  gentle  way  of 
showing  to  the  impetuous  Apostle  the  dilemma  in  which  his  hasty  answer 
had  placed  his  Lord.  We  see  in  it,  as  Luther  says,  the  fine,  friendly,  loving 
intercourse  which  must  have  existed  between  Christ  and  His  disciples.  It 
seems,  at  the  same  time,  to  establish  the  eternal  principle  that  religious 
services  should  be  maintained  by  spontaneous  generosity  and  an  innate 
sense  of  duty  rather  than  in  consequence  of  external  compulsion.  But  yet, 
what  is  lawful  is  not  always  expedient,  nor  is  there  anything  more  thoroughly 
unchristian  than  the  violent  maintenance  of  the  strict  letter  of  our  rights. 
The  Christian  will  always  love  rather  to  recede  from  something  of  his 
privilege — to  take  less  than  is  his  due.  And  so  He,  in  whose  steps  all 
ought  to  walk,  calmly  added,  "  Nevertheless,  least  we  should  offend  them  " 
(put  a  difficulty  or  stumbling-block  in  their  way),  "  go  thou  to  the  sea 
and  cast  a  hook,  and  take  the  first  fish  that  cometh  up  ;  and  opening  its 
mouth  thou  shalt  find  a  stater : '  that  take  and  give  unto  them  for  Me 
and  for  thee."""  In  the  very  act  of  submission,  as  Bengel  finely  says, 
"  His  majesty  gleams  forth."  He  would  pay  the  contribution  to  avoid 
hurting  the  feelings  of  any,  and  especially  because  His  Apostle  had 
promised  it  in  His  behalf:  but  He  could  not  pay  it  in  an  ordinary  way,. 

1  A  stater  equals  four  drachmas  ;  it  was  a  little  more  than  three  shillings  and  was  exactly  the  sum 
required  for  two  people.  The  tax  was  not  demanded  of  the  other  Apostles,  perhaps  because  Capernaum 
was  not  their  native  town.  The  bankers  to  whom  it  was  ordinarily  paid  sat  in  each  city  to  receive  it  on 
Adar  15. 

2  "  Instead  of  " — because  the  money  was  redemption  money  ;  "  for  me  and  for  thee  " — not  "  for  us," 
because  the  money  was  paid  differently  for  each.     Cf.  John  xx.  17. 


A  BRIEF  REST  IN  CAPERNAUM.  365 

because  that  would  be  to  compromise  a  principle.  In  obeying  the  law  of 
charity,  and  of  self-surrender,  He  would  also  obey  the  laws  of  dignity  and 
truth.  "He  pays  the  tribute,  therefore,"  says  Clarius,  "but  taken  from 
a  fish's  mouth,  that  His  majesty  may  be  recognized."' 

When  Paulus,  with  somewhat  vulgar  jocosity,  calls  this  "  a  miracle 
for  half-a-crown,"  he  only  shows  his  own  entire  misconception  of  the  fine 
ethical  lessons  which  are  involved  in  the  narrative,  and  which  in  this,  as 
in  every  other  instance,  separate  our  Lord's  miracles  from  those  of  the 
Apocrypha.  Yet  I  agree  with  the  learned  and  thoughtful  Olshausen  in 
regarding  this  as  the  most  difficult  to  comprehend  of  all  the  Gospel 
miracles — as  being  in  many  respects  sui  generis- — as  not  falling  under  the 
same  category  as  the  other  miracles  of  Christ.  "It  is  remarkable,"  says 
Archbishop  Trench,  "and  is  a  solitary  instance  of  the  kind,  that  the  issue 
of  this  bidding  is  not  told  us."  He  goes  on,  indeed,  to  say  that  the 
narrative  is  evidently  intended  to  be  miraculous,  and  this  is  the  impres- 
sion which  it  has  almost  universally  left  on  the  minds  of  those  who  read 
it.  Yet  the  literal  translation  of  our  Lord's  words  may  most  certainly 
be,  "on  opening  its  mouth,  thou  shalt  get,  or  obtain,'  a  stater;"  and 
although  there  is  no  difificulty  whatever  in  supposing  that  a  fish  may 
have  swallowed  the  glittering  coin  as  it  was  accidently  dropped  into  the 
water,  ^  nor  should  I  feel  the  slightest  difficulty  in  believing — as  I  hope 
that  this  book,  from  its  first  page  to  its  last,  will  show — that  a  miracle 
might  have  been  wrought,  yet  the  peculiarities  both  of  the  miracle  itself 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  it  is  narrated,  leave  in  my  mind  a  doubt  as 
to  whether,  in  this  instance,  some  essential  particular  may  not  have  been 
either  omitted  or  left  unexplained. 

1  Trench,  On  the  Miracles,  p.  406.      His  entire  creatment  of  this  miracle  is  suggestive  and  beautiful. 

2  This  is  a  thoroughly  classical  and  largely  substantiated  use  of  "I  find"  or  "get."     Heb.   ix.   12; 
Luke  i.  30  ;  xi.  g  ;  John  xii.  14 ;  Acts  vii.  46. 

3  Of  this  there  are  abundant  instances.     There  is  no  need  to  refer  to  the  story  of  Polycrates  or  to 
Augustine.     Mackerel  are  to  this  day  constantly  caught  by  tnelr  swallowing  a  glittering  piece  of  tin. 


CHAPTER   XXXIX. 


JESUS   AT   THE    FEAST   OF    TABERNACLES. 
"  To  the  Innocent  among  sinners ;  the  Just  among  reprobates  ;  the  Holy  among  the  vile." 

T  WAS  not  likely  that  Jesus  should  have  been 
able  to  live  at  Capernaum  without  the  fact  of 
His  visit  being  known  to  some  of  the  inhabi- 
tants. But  it  is  clear  that  His  stay  in  the 
town  was  very  brief,  and  that  it  was  of  a  strictly 
private  character.  The  discourse  and  the  in- 
cident mentioned  in  the  last  chapter  are  the 
only  records  of  it  which  are  left. 

But  it  was  now  autumn,  and  all  Galilee 
was  in  the  stir  of  preparation  which  preceded 
the  starting  of  the  annual  caravan  of  pilgrims 
to  one  of  the  three  great  yearly  feasts — the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles.  That  feast — the  Feast  of  Ingathering — was 
intended  to  commemorate  the  passage  of  the  Israelites 
through  the  wilderness,  and  was  celebrated  with  such  uni- 
versal joy,  that  both  Josephus  and  Philo  call  it  "the  holiest  and  greatest 
feast,"  and  it  was  known  among  the  Jews  as  ''the  Feast"  pre-eminently.' 
It  was  kept  for  seven  consecutive  days,  from  the  15th  to  the  21st  of 
Tisri,  and  the  eighth  day  was  celebrated  by  a  holy  convocation.  Dur- 
ing the  seven  days  the  Jews,  to  recall  their  desert  wanderings,  lived  in 
little  succdth,  or  booths  made  of  the  thickly  foliaged  boughs  of  olive, 
and  palm,  and  pine,  and  myrtle,  and  each  person  carried  in  his  hands  a 
lulab,  consisting  of  palm-branches,  or  willows  of  the  brook,  or  fruits  of 
peach  and  citron. =  During  the  week  of  festivities  all  the  courses  of 
priests  were  employed  in  turn  ;  seventy  bullocks  were  offered  in  sacrifice 


1  See  on  the  details  of  this  Feast,  Numb.  xxix.  12—38;  Neh.  viii.  15;  2  Mace   x.  6,  7 ;  Exod.  xxiii.  16; 
Lev.  xxiii.  34,  seqq.;  Deut.  xvi.  13—15. 

2  Lev.  xxiii.  40,  marg. 

3<6 


JESUS  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES.  367 

for  the  seventy  nations  of  the  world ; '  the  Law  was  daily  read,'  and  on 
each  day  the  Temple  trumpets  sounded  twenty-one  times  an  inspiring- 
and  triumphant  blast.  The  joy  of  the  occasion  w^s  doubtless  deepened 
by  the  fact  that  the  feast  followed  but  four  days  after  the  awful  and 
comforting  ceremonies  of  the  Great  Day  of  Atonement,  in  which  a 
solemn  expiation  was  made  for  the  sins  of  all  the  people. 

On  the  eve  of  their  departure  for  this  feast  the  family  and  relations 
of  our  Lord — those  who  in  ::he  Gospels  are  invariably  called  His 
"  brethren,"  and  some  of  whose  descendants  were  known  to  early  tradi- 
tion as  the  Desposyni — came  to  Him  for  the  last  time  with  a  well-meant 
but  painful  and  presumptuous  interference.  They — like  the  Pharisees, 
and  like  the  multitude,  and  like  Peter — fancied  that  they  knew  better 
than  Jesus  Himself  that  line  of  conduct  which  would  best  accomplish 
His  work  and  hasten  the  universal  recognition  of  His  claims.  They 
came  to  Him  with  the  language  of  criticism,  of  discontent,  almost  of 
reproaches  and  complaints.  "  Why  this  unreasonable  and  incomprehen- 
sible secrecy  ?  it  contradicts  Thy  claims  ;  it  discourages  Thy  followers. 
Thou  hast  disciples  in  Judea :  go  thither,  and  let  them  too  see  Thy 
works  which  Thou  doest  ?  If  Thou  doest  these  things,  manifest  Thyself 
to  the  world."  If  they  could  use  such  language  to  their  Lord  and 
Master — if  they  could,  as  it  were,  thus  challenge  His  power  to  the  proof 
— it  is  but  too  plain  that  their  knowledge  of  Him  was  so  narrow  and 
inadequate  as  to  justify  the  sad  parenthesis  of  the  beloved  Evangelist — • 
"for  not  even  His  brethren  believed  on  Him."  He  was  a  stranger  unto 
His  brethren,  even  an  alien  unto  His  mother's  children.  ^ 

Such  dictation  on  their  part — the  bitter  fruit  of  impatient  vanity  and 
unspiritual  ignorance — showed  indeed  a  most  blamable  presumption  ;*  yet 
our  Lord  only  answered  them  with  calm  and  j^entle  dignity.  "  No  ;  my 
time  to  manifest  myself  to  the  world — which  is  jour  world  also,  and 
which  therefore  cannot  hate  you  as  it  hates  me — is  not  yet  come.  Go 
ye  up  to  this  feast.  I  choose  not  to  go  up  to  this  feast,  for  not  yet  has 
my  time  been  fulfilled."  So  he  answered  them,  and  stayed  in  Galilee. 
'  I  go  not  up  yet  unto  this  feast "  is  the  rendering    of    the    English 

.  Thirteen  bullocks  the  first  day,  twelve  the  second,  eleven  the  third,  and  so  on. 
i  Neh.  viii.  iS.     Cf.  John  vii.  ig. 

3  Ps.  Ixix.  S  ;  John  vii.  i — g. 

4  As  Stier  remarks,  the  "  depart  hence,"  of  John  vii.  3,  is  a  style  of  bold  imperative  which  those  only 
could  have  adopted  who  presumed  on  their  close  earthly  relationship  ;  and  they  seem  almost  ostentatiously 
»o  exr'ude  themselves  from  the  number  of  Hi.e  disciples. 


368  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

version,  adopting  the  reading  ovttco,  '' not  yet ;"  but  even  if  ovx,  "not," 
be  the  true  reading,  the  meaning  is  substantially  the  same.  The  ovnoo 
in  the  next  clause,  **  my  time  has  not  yet  been  fulfilled,"  distinctly  inti- 
mated that  such  a  time  ivould  come,  and  that  it  was  not  His  object  to 
intimate  to  His  brethren — whose  utter  want  of  sympathy  and  reverence 
had  just  been  so  unhappily  displayed — zvhcn  that  time  would  be.  And 
there  was  a  reason  for  this.  It  was  essential  for  the  safety  of  His  life, 
which  was  not  to  end  for  six  months  more — it  was  essential  for  the 
carrying  out  of  His  Divine  purposes,  which  were  closely  enwoven  with 
the  events  of  the  next  few  days — that  His  brethren  should  not  know 
about  His  plans.  And  therefore  He  let  them  depart  in  the  completest 
uncertainty  as  to  whether  or  not  He  intended  to  follow  them.'  Certain 
as  they  were  to  be  asked  by  multitudes  whether  He  was  coming  to 
the  feast,  it  was  necessary  that  they  should  be  able  to  answer,  with  per- 
fect truthfulness,  that  He  was  at  any  rate  not  coming  with  them,  and 
that  whether  He  would  come  before  the  feast  was  over  or  not  they  could 
not  tell.  And  that  this  must  have  occurred,  and  that  this  must  have 
been  their  answer,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  one  question  buzzed 
about  from  ear  to  ear  in  those  gay  and  busy  streets  was,  "Where  is  He? 
is  He  here  already?  is  He  coming?"*  And  as  He  did  not  appear.  His 
whole  character,  His  whole  mission,  were  discussed.  The  words  of 
approval  were  vague  and  timid,  "He  is  a  good  man;"  the  words  of  con- 
demnation were  bitter  and  emphatic,  "  Nay,  but  He  is  a  mcsith — He 
deceiveth  the  people."  But  no  one  dared  to  speak  openly  his  full 
thought  about  Him;  each  seemed  to  distrust  his  neighbor;  and  all  feared 
to  commit  themselves  too  far  while  the  opinion  of  the  "Jews,"  i.e.,  of  the 
leadincr  Priests  and  Pharisees,  had  not  been  finally  or  decisively  declared. 
And  suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  murmurs  and  discussions,  in 
the  middle  of  the  feast,  Jesus,  unaccompanied  apparently  by  His  follow- 
ers, unheralded  by  His  friends,  appeared  in  the  Temple,  and  taught. 
By   what    route    He    had    reached    the    Holy  City — how    He    had    passed 

1  As  early  as  the  third  century  after  Christ,  the  philosopher  Porphyry,  one  of  the  bitterest  and  ablest 
f  thos;   wh.  assr.ultcd  Christianity,  charged  our  blessed   Lord  with  deception   in   this  incident;  and  it  is 

theref-^rc  clear  that  in  his  time  the  reading  was  "  not."  And  even  an  eminent  Christian  commcntat  r  like 
Meyer  has  supposed  that,  in  this  instance,  Jesus  subsequently  changed  His  purpose.  The  latter  supposi- 
tion is  precarious,  perhaps  wholly  irreverent  ;  the  former  is  utterly  senseless.  I'o/  even  if  Porphyry  sup- 
posed that  it  could  have  happened,  he  must  have  seen  how  preposterous  was  the  notion  of  St.  John's 
holding  such  a  view.  It  therefore  seems  to  me  a  matter  of  no  consequence  whatever  whether  "  not "  or 
"  not  yet"  be  read  ;  for  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  Evangelist  saw  nothing  in  the  language  of  our  Lord  but 
the  desire  to  exclude  His  brethren  from  any  certain  knowledge  of  His  plans. 

2  lohn  vii.  ii. 


JESUS  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES.  369 

through  the  bright  thronged  streets  unnoticed — whether  He  joined  in  the 
innocent  mirth  of  the  festival — whether  He  too  Hved  in  a  Httle  succali  of 
palm-leaves  during  the  remainder  of  the  week,  and  wandered  among  the 
brightly-dressed  crowds  of  an  Oriental  gala  day  with  the  lulab  and  citron 
in  His  hands — whether  His  voice  was  heard  in  the  Hallel,  or  the  Great 
Hosanna — we  do  not  know.  All  that  is  told  us  is  that,  throwing  Him- 
self, as  it  were,  in  full  confidence  on  the  protection  of  His  disciples 
from  Galilee  and  those  in  Jerusalem,  He  was  suddenly  found  seated  in 
one  of  the  large  halls  which  opened  out  of  the  Temple  courts,  and  there 
He  taught. 

For  a  time  they  listened  to  Him  in  awe-struck  silence;  but  soon  the 
old  scruples  recurred  to  them.  "  He  is  no  authorized  Rabbi ;  He  belono-s 
to  no  recognized  school;  neither  the  followers  of  Hillel  nor  those  of 
Shammai  claim  Him;  He  is  a  Nazarene ;  He  was  trained  in  the  shop  of 
the  Galilean  carpenter ;  how  knoweth  this  man  letters,  havino-  never 
learned?"  As  though  the  few  who  are  taught  of  God — whose  learnino- 
is  the  learning  of  a  pure  heart  and  an  enlightened  eye  and  a  blameless 
life — did  not  unspeakably  transcend  in  wisdom,  and  therefore  also  in  the 
best  and  truest  knowledge,  those  whose  learning  has  but  come  from  other 
men  !  It  is  not  the  voice  of  erudition,  but  it  is,  as  the  old  Greek  thinker 
says,  the  voice  of  Inspiration — the  voice  of  the  divine  Sibyl — which,  utter- 
ing things  simple  and  unperfumed  and  unadorned,  reacheth  through 
myriads  of  years. 

Jesus  understood  their  looks.  He  interpreted  their  murmurs.  He 
told  them  that  His  learning  came  immediately  from  His  Heavenly  Father 
and  that  they,  too,  if  they  did  God's  will,  might  learn,  and  mio-ht  under- 
stand, the  same  high  lessons.  In  all  ages  there  is  a  tendency  to  mistake 
erudition  for  learning,  knowledge  for  wisdom  ;  in  all  ages  there  has  been 
a  slowness  to  comprehend  that  true  learning  of  the  deepest  and  noblest 
character  may  co-exist  with  complete    and    utter  ignorance  of    everythino- 

which  absorbs  and  constitutes  the  learning  of  the  schools.      In  otie  sense 

Jesus  told  His  hearers — they  knew  the  law  which  Moses  had  given  them  • 
in  another  they  were  pitiably  ignorant  of  it.  They  could  not  understand 
its  principles,  because  they  were  not  "faithful  to  its  precepts.""  And 
then   He  asked  them  openly,   "Why  go  ye  about  to  kill  me?" 

That    determination    to    kill    Him  was    known    indeed    to    Him,  and 

I  Cf.  Ecclus.  xxi.  II,  ''He  that  keepeth  the  law  of  the  Lord  getteth   the  understanding  thereof."     (John   x\v. 
15 — 17,  20,  21  ;  see,  too.  Job  xxviii.  28.) 


370  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

known  to  some  of  those  who  heard  Him,  but  was  a  guilty  secret  which 
had  been  concealed  from  the  majority  of  the  multitude.  These  answered 
the  question,  while  the  others  kept  their  guilty  silence.  "  Thou  hast  a 
devil,"  the  people  answered;"  "who  goeth  about  to  kill  Thee?"  Why 
did  they  speak  with  such  superfluous  and  brutal  bluntness  ?  Do  not  we 
repudiate  with  far  less  flaming  indignation  a  charge  which  we  know  to 
be  not  only  false,  but  wholly  preposterous  and  foundationless  ?  Was 
there  not  in  the  minds  even  of  this  not  yet  wholly  alienated  multitude 
an  uneasy  sense  of  their  distance  from  the  Speaker — of  that  unutterable 
superiority  to  themselves  which  pained  and  shamed  and  irritated  them? 
Were  they  not  conscious,  in  their  carnal  and  vulgar  aspijrations,  that  this 
Prophet  came,  not  to  condescend  to  such  views  as  theirs,  but  to  raise 
them  to  a  region  where  they  felt  that  they  could  not  breathe  ?  Was 
there  not  even  then  in  their  hearts  something  of  the  half-unconscious 
hatred  of  vice  to  virtue,  the  repulsion  of  darkness  against  light  ?  Would 
they  have  said,  "Thou  hast  a  devil,"  when  they  heard  Him  say  that 
some  of  them  were  plotting  against  His  life,  if  they  had  not  felt  that 
they  were  themselves  capable  at  almost  any  moment  of  joining  in — ay, 
with  their  own  hands  of  executing — so  base  a  plot  ? 

Jesus  did  not  notice  their  coarse  insolence.  He  referred  them  to 
that  one  work  of  healing  on  the  Sabbath  day,"  at  which  they  were  all 
still  marveling,  with  an  empty  wonder,  that  He  who  had  the  power  to 
perform  such  a  deed  should,  in  performing  it,  have  risen  above  their 
empty,  ceremonial,  fetish-worshipping  notions  of  Sabbath  sanctity.  And 
Jesus,  who  ever  loved  to  teach  the  lesson  that  love  and  not  literalism  is 
the  fulfilling  of  the  Law,  showed  them,  even  on  their  own  purely  ritual 
and  Levitical  principle,  that  His  word  of  healing  had  in  no  respect  vio- 
lated the  Sabbath  at  all. 

For  instance,  Moses  had  established,  or  rather  re-established,  the 
ordinance  of  circumcision  on  the  eighth  day,  and  if  that  eighth 
day  happened  to  be  a  Sabbath,  they  without  scruple  sacrificed 
the  one  ordinance  to  the  other,  and  in  spite  of  the  labor  which 
it  involved,  performed  the  rite  of  circumcision  on  the  Sabbath  day. 
If  the  law  of  circumcision  superseded  that  of  the  Sabbath,  did  not 
the  law  of  Mercy?  If  it  was  right  by  a  series  of  actions  to  inflict 
a    painful    wound,    was    it    wrong    by    a    single    word    to  effect    a    total 

1  John  vii.  20,  "the  multitude,"  not  "  the  Jews." 

2  John  V.  5. 


JESUS  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES.  371 

cure  ?"  If  that, which  was  at  the  best  but  a  sign  of  deliverance,  could  not,  even 
on  account  of  the  Sabbath,  be  postponed  for  a  single  day,  why  was  it 
criminal  not  to  have  postponed  for  the  sake  of  the  Sabbath  a  deliver- 
ance actual  and  entire  ?  And  then  He  summed  His  self-defense  in  the 
one  calm  word,  "  Do  not  be  ever  judging  by  the  mere  appearance,  but 
judge  a  righteous  judgment;""  instead  of  being  permanently  content 
with  a  superficial  mode  of  criticism,  come  once  for  all  to  some  principle 
of  righteous  decision. 

His  hearers  were  perplexed  and  amazed.  "Is  this  He  against  whose 
life  some  are  plotting?  Can  He  be  the  Messiah?  Nay,  He  cannot  be; 
for  we  know  whence  this  speaker  comes,  whereas  they  say  that  none 
shall  know  whence  the  Messiah  shall  have  come  when   He  appears." 

There  was  a  certain  irony  in  the  answer  of  Jesus.  They  knew 
whence  He  came  and  all  about  Him,  and  yet,  in  very  truth.  He  came 
not  of  Himself,  but  from  one  of  whom  they  knew  nothing.  This  word 
maddened  still  more  some  of  His  hearers.  They  longed  but  did  not 
dare  to  seize  Him,  and  all  the  more  because  there  were  some  whom  these 
words  convinced,  and  who  appealed  to  His  many  miracles  as  irresistible 
proof  of  His  sacred  claims.^  The  Sanhedrin,  seated  in  frequent  session 
in  their  stone  hall  of  meeting  within  the  immediate  precincts  of  the  Tem- 
ple, were,  by  means  of  their  emissaries,  kept  informed  of  all  that  He 
did  and  said,  and,  without  seeming  to  do  so,  watched  His  every  move- 
ment with  malignant  and  jealous  eyes.  These  whispered  arguments  in 
His  favor,  this  deepened  awe  of  Him  and  belief  in  Him,  which,  despite 
their  authority,  was  growing  up  under  their  very  eyes,  seemed  to  them 
at  once  humiliating  and  dangerous.  They  determined  on  a  bolder  course 
of  action.  They  sent  out  emissaries  to  seize  Him  suddenly  and  stealthily, 
at  the  first  opportunity  which  should  occur.  But  Jesus  showed  no  fear. 
He  was  to  be  with  them  a  little  longer,  and  then,  and  not  till  then, 
should  He  return  to  Him  that  sent  Him.*  Then,  indeed,  they  would 
seek  Him — seek  Him,  not  as  now  with  hostile  intentions,  but  in  all  the 
crushing  agony  of  remorse  and  shame-;  but  their  search  would  be  in  vain. 

1  Stier  quotes  from  the  Rabbis  a  remark  to  this  very  effect,  "  Circumcision,  which  is  one  of  the  248 
members  of  the  body,  supersedes  the  Sabbath  ;  how  much  more  the  whole  body  of  a  man?" 

2  John  vii.  24,  "  Do  not  be  judging     .     .     .     but     .     .     .     judge  once  for  all." 

3  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  Jews  have  never  attempted  to  deny  the  reality  of  the  miracles  which 
Jesus  wrought.  All  that  their  books  can  say  is  that  He  performed  them  by  means  of  the  "Tetragram- 
maton,"  or  sacred  name. 

4  Cf.  John  viii.  21. 


2,'J2  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

His  enemies  wholly  failed  to  understand  the  allusion.  In  the  uouuied 
and  terrible  days  which  were  to  come  they  would  understand  it  only  too 
bitterly  and  well.  Now  they  could  only  jeeringly  conjecture  that  possi- 
bly He  had  some  wild  intention  of  going  to  teach  among  the  Gentiles.' 
So  passed  this  memorable  day;  and  again,  on  the  last  day  of  the 
feast,'  Jesus  was  standing  in  the  Temple.  On  each  day  of  the  seven, 
and,  possibly,  even  on  the  eighth,  there  was  a  significant  and  joyous 
ceremony.  At  early  morning  the  people  repaired  to  the  Temple,  and 
when  the  morning  sacrifice  had  been  laid  on  the  altar,  one  of  the  priests 
went  down  with  a  golden  ewer  to  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  not  far  from  the 
foot  of  Mount  Sion.  There,  with  great  solemnity,  he  drew  three  logs  of 
water,  which  were  then  carried  in  triumphant  procession  through  the  water- 
gate  into  the  Temple.  As  he  entered  the  Temple  courts  the  sacred 
trumpets  breathed  out  a  joyous  blast,  which  continued  till  he  reached  the 
top  of  the  altar  slope,  and  there  poured  the  water  into  a  silver  basin  on 
the  western  side,  while  wine  was  poured  into  another  silver  basin  on  the 
eastern  side.  Then  the  Hallel  was  sung, '  and  when  they  came  to  the 
verse  "Oh  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  He  is  good:  for  His  mercy 
endureth  for  ever,"  each  of  the  gaily-clad  worshippers,  as  he  stood  beside 
the  altars,  shook  his  hdab  in  triumph.  In  the  evening  they  abandoned 
themselves  to  such  rejoicing,  that  the  Rabbis  say  that  the  man  who  has 
not  seen  this  "joy  of  the  drawing  water"  does  not  know  what  joy 
means.* 

1  Literally  "dispersion  of  the  Greeks  "  (John  vii.  35)  means  here,  in  all  probability,  "  Gentile  countries 
among  which  Jews  are  dispersed."  And  such  a  notion  would  seem  to  those  bigoted  Jews  only  too  ridicu- 
lous. A  modern  Rabbi  at  Jerusalem  did  not  know  in  what  quarter  of  the  globe  he  was  living,  had  never 
heard  the  name  Europe,  and  called  all  other  pans  of  the  world  except  Palestine  "  outside  the  Holy  Land  !  " 
(Frankl). 

2  The  feast  lasted  seven  days,  but  it  is  uncertain  whether  by  "the  last  day,  that  great  day  of  the 
feast,"  the  seventh  day  is  intended,  which  was  the  proper  conclusion  of  the  feast,  or  the  eighth,  on  which 
the  booths  were  taken  down,  but  on  which  there  were  special  offerings  and  a  holy  convocation  (Numb. 
xxi.x.  36 — 3S).  It  is  said  that  the  seventh,  not  being  distinguished  from  the  other  days,  cannot  be  called 
"  the  great  day;"  but  on  the  other  hand,  the  last  day  of  a  feast  is  always  likely  to  be  conspicuous  for  the 
zest  of  its  ceremonies,  and  there  seems  to  be  at  least  some  indication  that  such  was  actually  the  case.  One 
Rabbi  (R.  Juda  Hakkodesh),  in  the  tract  Succah,  which  is  our  chief  authority  on  this  subject,  says  that  the 
water  was  poured  out  on  the  eighth  as  well  as  on  the  previous  days,  but  the  others  deny  this.  The  eighth 
day  of  the  Passover,  and  of  Tabernacles,  is  in  Deut.  xvi.  8;  Lev.  xxiii.  34,  called  "solemn  assembly," 
marg.  "  day  of  restraint." 

3.  Ps.  cxiii. — cxviii.     The  "  Great  Hallel"  is  Ps.  cxxxvi. 

4  The  day  was  called  the  Hosannah  Rabbah,  or  "  Great  Hosannah,"  because  on  the  seventh  day  the 
Hallel  was  seven  times  sung.  The  origin  of  the  ceremony  is  quite  obscure,  but  it  is  at  least  possible  that  the 
extra  joy  of  it — the  processions,  illuminations,  dances — commemorated  the  triumph  of  the  Pharisees  in 
having  got  the  better  of  Alexander  Jannaeus,  who,  instead  of  pouring  the  water  on  the  altar,  disdainfully 
poured  it  on  the  ground.     The  Pharisees  in  their  fury  hurled  at  his  head  the  citron-fruits  which   they  were 


JESUS  AT  THE  FEAST  OF  TABERNACLES.  37^ 

In  evident  allusion  to  this  glad  custom — perhaps  in  sympathy  with 
that  sense  of  something  missing  which  succeeded  the  disuse  of  it  on  the 
eighth  day  of  the  feast — Jesus  pointed  the  yearnings  of  the  festal  crowd 
in  the  Temple,  as  He  had  done  those  of  the  Samaritan  woman  by  the 
lonely  well,  to  a  new  truth,  and  to  one  which  more  than  fulfilled  alike 
the  spiritual  (Isa.  xii.  3)  and  the  historical  meaning  (i  Cor.  x.  4)  of  the 
scenes  which  they  had  witnessed.  He  "stood  and  cried.  If  any  man 
thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink.  He  that  believeth  on  me,  as 
the  Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living 
water.""  And  the  best  of  them  felt  in  their  inmost  soul — and  this  is  the 
strongest  of  all  the  evidences  of  Christianity  for  those  who  believe  heart 
and  soul  in  a  God  of  love  who  cares  for  His  children  in  the  family  of 
man — that  they  had  deep  need  of  a  comfort  and  salvation,  of  the  out- 
pouring of  a  Holy  Spirit,  which  He  who  spake  to  them  could  alone 
bestow.  But  the  very  fact  that  some  were  beginning  openly  to  speak  of 
Him  as  the  Prophet  and  the  Christ,  only  exasperated  the  others.  They 
had  a  small  difficulty  of  their  own  creating,  founded  on  pure  ignorance 
of  fact,  but  which  yet  to  their  own  narrow  dogmatic  fancy  was  irresist- 
ible— "Shall  Christ  come  out  of  Galilee?  must  He  not  come  from 
Bethlehem?   of  David's  seed?"" 

It  was  during  this  division  of  opinion  that  the  officers  whom  the 
Pharisees  had  dispatched  to  seize  Jesus,  returned  to  them  without  having 
even  attempted  to  carry  out  their  design.  As  they  hovered  among  the 
Temple  courts,  as  they  stood  half  sheltered  behind  the  Temple  pillars, 
not  unobserved,  it  may  be,  by  Him  for  whom  they  were  lying  in  wait, 
they  too  could  not  fail  to  hear  some  of  the  divine  words  which  flowed 
out  of  His  mouth.  And,  hearing  them,  they  could  not  fulfill  their  mis- 
sion. A  sacred  spell  was  upon  them,  which  they  were  unable  to  resist; 
a  force  infinitely  more  powerful  than  their  own,  unnerved  their  strength 
and  paralyzed  their  will.     To  listen  to  Him  was  not  only  to  be  disarmed 

carrying  in  their  hands  (Lev.  xxiii.  40),  and  on  his  calling  his  mercenaries  to  his  aid,  a  massacre  of  nearly 
six  thousand  ensued.  This  unauthorized  use  of  the  fruits  as  convenient  missiles  seems  not  to  have  been 
rare  (Succah,  iv.  9). 

I  Cf.  Isa.  xliii.  20  ;  Iviii.  it  ;  Iv.  i  ;  xii.  3  ;  and  John  iv.  14  ;  vi.  35  ;  Rev.  xxii.  17.  These  are  tha 
nearest  passages  to  "as  the  Scripture  hath  said,"  which  must  therefore  be  interpreted  as  a ^mirra/ allusion. 
No  metaphor  could  be  more  intense  than  that  offered  by  the  longing  for  water  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land. 
To  see  the  eagerness  with  which  men  and  beasts  alike  rush  to  the  fountain-side  after  journeys  in  Palestine 
is  a  striking  sight.  The  Arabs  begin  to  sing  and  shout,  constantly  repeating  the  words  "  Snow  in  th» 
sun  !  snow  in  the  sun  !" 

3  Micah  V.  2  ;  Isa.  xi.  I  ;  Jer.  xxiii.  5,  &c. 


374  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

in  every  attempt  against  Him,  it  was  even  to  be  half-converted  from  bit- 
ter enemies  to  awe-struck  disciples.  "  Never  man  spake  like  this  man," 
was  all  that  they  could  say.  That  bold  disobedience  to  positive  orders 
must  have  made  them  afraid  of  the  possible  consequences  to  themselves, 
but  obedience  would  have  required  a  courage  even  greater,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  that  rankling  wound  wherewith  an  awakened  conscience  ever 
pierces  the  breast  of  crime. 

The  Pharisees  could  only  meet  them  with  angry  taunts.  "  What,  ye 
too  intend  to  accept  this  Prophet  of  the  ignorant,  this  favorite  of  the 
accursed  and  miserable  mob!""  Then  Nicodemus  ventured  on  a  timid 
word,  "Ought  you  not  to  try,  before  you  condemn  Him?"  They  had 
no  reply  to  the  justice  of  that  principle  :  they  could  only  fall  back  again 
on  taunts — "Are  you  then  a  Galilean?"  and  then  the  old  ignorant 
dogmatism,   "Search,  and  look:  for  out  of  Galilee  ariseth  no  prophet." 

Where  then,  as  we  have  asked  already,  was  Gath-hepher,  whence 
Jonah  came?  where  Thisbe,  whence  Elijah  came?  where  Elkosh,  whence 
Nahum  came?  where  the  northern  town  whence  Hosea  came?  The  more 
recent  Jews,  with  better  knowledge  of  Scripture,  declare  that  the  Messiah 
is  to  come  from  Galilee;''  and  they  settle  at  Tiberias,  because  they  believe 
that  He  will  rise  from  the  waters  of  the  Lake;  and  at  Safed,  "the  city 
set  on  a  hill,"  because  they  believe  that  He  will  there  first  fix  His 
throne.  But  there  is  no  ignorance  so  deep  as  the  ignorance  that  will 
not  know  ;  no  blindness  so  incurable  as  the  blindness  which  will  not  see. 
And  the  dogmatism  of  a  narrow  and  stolid  prejudice  which  believes 
itself  to  be  theological  learning  is,  of  all  others,  the  most  ignorant  and  the 
most  blind.  Such  was  the  spirit  in  which,  ignoring  the  mild  justice  of 
Nicodemus,  and  the  marvelous  impression  made  by  Jesus  even  on  their 
own  hostile  apparitors,  the  majority  of  the  Sanhedrin  broke  up,  and  went 
each  to  his  own  home. 

1  The  ecclesiastical  contempt  of  the  Pharisees  surpassed,  in  its  habitual  spirit  of  scorn,  the  worst  inso- 
lence of  Paganism  against  "  the  many." 

2  See  Isa.  ix.  I,  2,  and  this  is  asserted  in  the  Zohar. 


CHAPTER    XL. 


THE    WOMAN    TAKEN    IN    ADULTERY. 
"  Thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all."— Shakespeare. 

.nil II.  ..i.ll,  ^..Q 

N  THE  difficulties  which  beset  the  celebrated 
incident  which  follows,  it  is  impossible  for  us 
to  arrive  at  any  certainty  as  to  its  true  posi- 
tion in  the  narrative."  As  there  must,  however, 
be  some  a  priori  probability  that  its  place  was 
assigned  with  due  reference  to  the  order  of 
events,  and  as  there  appear  to  be  some  obvious 
though  indirect  references  to  it  in  the  discourses 
which  immediately  follow,'  I  shall  proceed  to 
speak  of  it  here,  feeling  no  shadow  of  a  doubt 
that  the  incident  really  happened,  even  if  the 
form  in  which  it  is  preserved  to  us  is  by  no 
means  indisputably  genuine.^ 

At  the  close  of  the  day  recorded  in  the 
last  chapter,  Jesus  withdrew  to  the  Mount  of  Olives.  Whether  He  went 
to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  and  to  the  house  of  its  unknown  but 
friendly  owner,  or  whether — not  having  where  to  lay  His  head — He 
simply   slept,    Eastern    fashion,    on    the   green    turf    under    those    ancient 

1  John  viii.  i — 1 1.  In  some  MSS.  it  is  placed  at  the  end  of  St.  John's  Gospel ;  in  some,  after  Luke  xxi., 
mainly,  no  doubt,  because  it  fits  on  well  to  the  verses  37,  38  in  that  chapter.  Hitzig  conjectured,  very 
plausibly,  that  the  fact  which  it  records  really  belongs  to  Mark  xii.,  falling  in  naturally  between  the  con- 
spiracy of  the  Pharisees  and  Herodians,  and  that  of  the  Sadducees  to  tempt  Christ — i.e.,  between  the  17th 
and  iSth  verses.  In  that  case  its  order  of  sequence  would  be  on  the  Tuesday  in  Passion  week.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  has  no  connection  with  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and  no  tinge  of  Johannean  authorship, 
why  should  so  many  MSS.  place  it  here  ? 

2  Ex.gr.,  John  viii.  15,  17,  24,  46. 

3  The  whole  mass  of  critical  evidence  may  be  seen  fully  treated  in  Liicke's  Commentary  (third  edition), 
ii.  243 — 256.  We  may  briefly  summarize  the  grounds  of  its  dubious  genuineness  by  observing  that  (i)  it  is 
not  found  in  some  of  the  best  and  oldest  MSS.;  (2)  nor  in  most  of  the  Fathers  (t-.^. ,  Origen,  Cyril,  Chrysostom, 
Theophylact,  Tertullian,  Cyprian);  (3)  nor  in  many  ancient  versions  (e.g.,  Sahidic,  Coptic,  and  Gothic);  (4) 
in  other  MSS.  it  is  marked  with  oheli  and  asterisks,  or  a  space  is  left  for  it,  or  it  is  inserted  elsewhere;  (5)  it 
contains  an  extraordinary  number  of  various  readings  ("  there  are  various  readings  to  almost  every  word  '' 
— Tischendorf);  (6)  it  contains  several  expressions  not  elsewhere  found  in  St.  John;  and  (7)  it  differs  widely 
in  some  respects  from  the  style  of  St.  John  throughout  the  rest  of  the  Gospel.     Several  of  these  arguments 


376  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

olive-trees,  we  cannot  tell;  but  it  is  interesting  to  trace  in  Him  once 
more  that  dislike  of  crowded  cities,  that  love  for  the  pure,  sweet,  fresh 
air,  and  for  the  quiet  of  the  lonely  hill,  which  we  see  in  all  parts  of  His 
career  on  earth.  There  was,  indeed,  in  Him  nothing  of  that  supercilious 
sentimentality  and  morbid  egotism  which  makes  men  shrink  from  all 
contact  with  their  brother-men;  nor  can  they  who  would  be  His  true 
servants  belong  to  those  merely  fantastic  philanthropists 

"  Who  sigh  for  wretchedness,  yet  shun  the  wretched. 
Nursing  in  some  delicious  solitude 
Their  dainty  loves  and  slothful  sympathies." 

On  the  contrary,  day  after  day,  while  His  day-time  of  work  continued, 
we  find  Him  sacrificing  all  that  was  dearest  and  most  elevating  to  His 
soul,  and  in  spite  of  heat,  and  pressure,  and  conflict,  and  weariness, 
calmly  pursuing  His  labors  of  love  amid  "the  madding  crowd's  ignoble 
strife."  But  in  the  night-time,  when  men  cannot  work,  no  call  of  duty 
required  His  presence  within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  oppressive  foulness  of  ancient  cities  can  best  imagine 
the  relief  which  His  spirit  must  have  felt  when  He  could  escape  from 
the  close  streets  and  thronged  bazaars,  to  cross  the  ravine,  and  climb  the 
green  slope  beyond  it,  and  be  alone  with  His  Heavenly  Father  under 
the  starry  night. 

But  when  the  day  dawned  His  duties  lay  once  more  within  the  city 
walls,  and  in  that  part  of  the  city  where,  almost  alone,  we  hear  of  His 
presence — in  the  courts  of  His  Father's  house.  And  with  ihe  very  dawn 
His   enemies   contrived    a  fresh    plot   against    Him,  the    circumstances  of 

are  weakened — (i.)  by  the  (act  that  the  diversitiesof  readings  may  be  reduced  to  three  main  recensions;  (ii.) 
that  the  rejection  of  the  passage  may  have  been  due  to  a  false  dogmatical  bias;  (iii.)  that  the  silence  of  some 
of  the  Fathers  may  be  accidental,  and  of  others  prudential.  The  arguments  in  its  favor  are — i.  It  is  found 
in  some  old  and  important  uncials,  and  in  more  than  300  cursive  MSB.,  in  some  of  the  Itala,  and  in  th  ■ 
Vulgate.  2.  The  tendencies  which  led  to  its  deliberate  rejection  would  have  rendered  all  but  impossible 
its  invention  or  interpolation.  3  It  is  quoted  by  Augustine,  Ambrose,  and  Jerome,  and  treated  as  genuine 
in  the  Apostolic  constitutions.  St.  Jerome's  testimony  is  particularly  important,  because  he  says  that  in 
his  time  it  was  found  "in  many  manuscripts  both  Greek  and  Latin" — and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
nearly  all  of  these  must  have  been  considerably  older  than  any  which  we  now  possess.  The  main  facts 
to  be  observed  are,  that  though  the  dogmatic  bias  against  the  passage  might  be  sufficient  to  account 
for  its  rejection,  it  gives  us  no  help  in  explaining  its  want  of  resemblance  to  the  style  of  St.  John.  A  very 
simple  hypothesis  will  account  for  all  difficulties.  If  we  suppose  that  the  story  of  the  woman  accused  before 
our  Lord  of  many  sins — to  which  Eusebius  alludes  as  existing  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews — is  identical 
with  this,  we  may  suppose,  withoutany  improbability,  either  (i.)  that  St.  John  (as  Alford  hesitatingly  suggests) 
may  here  have  adopted  a  portion  of  current  synoptic  tradition,  or  (ii.)  that  the  story  may  have  been  derived 
originally  from  Papias,  the  pupil  of  St.  John,  and  having  found  its  way  into  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  may 
have  been  adopted  gradually  into  some  MSS.  of  St.  John's  Gospel.  Many  recent  writers  adopt  the  sugges- 
tion of  Holtzmann,  that  it  belongs  to  the  "  Ur-marcus,"  or  ground  document  of  the  Synoptists.  Whoever 
embodied  into  the  Gospels  this  traditionally-remembered  story  deserved  well  of  the  v  rid. 


THE  WOMAN  TAKEN  IN  ADUL.TERY.  2,77 

which  made  their  malice    even    more   actually  painful    than    it  was  inten- 
tionally perilous. 

It  is  probable  that  the  hilarity  and  abandonment  of  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  which  had  grown  to  be  a  kind  of  vintage  festival,  would 
often  degenerate  into  acts  of  .icense  and  .immorality,  and  these  would 
find  more  numerous  opportunities  in  the  general  disturbance  of  ordinary 
life  caused  by  the  dwelling  of  the  whole  people  in  their  little  leafy  booths. 
One  such  act  had  been  detected  during  the  previous  night,  and  the  guilty- 
woman  had  been  handed  over  to  the  Scribes "  and  Pharisees. 

Even  had  the  morals  of  the  nation  at  that  time  been  as  clean  as  in 
the  days  when  Moses  ordained  the  fearful  ordeal  of  the  "water  of  jeal- 
ousy"'— even  had  these  rulers  and  teachers  of  the  nation  been  elevated 
as  far  above  their  contemporaries  in  the  real,  as  in  the  professed,  sanc- 
tity of  their  lives — the  discovery,  and  the  threatened  punishment,  of  this 
miserable  adulteress  could  hardly  have  failed  to  move  every  pure  and 
noble  mind  to  a  compassion  which  would  have  mingled  largely  with  the 
horror  which  her  sin  inspired.  They  might,  indeed,  even  on  those  sup- 
positions, have  inflicted  the  established  penalty  with  a  sternness  as 
inflexible  as  that  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  the  early  days  of  Salem  or 
Providence  ;  but  the  sternness  of  a  severe  and  pure-hearted  judo-e  is 
not  a  sternness  which  precludes  all  pity  ;  it  is  a  sternness  which  would 
not  willingly  inflict  one  unnecessary  pang— it  is  a  sternness  not  incom- 
patible with  a  righteous  tenderness,  but  wholly  incompatible  with  a  mixt- 
ure of  meaner  and  slighter  motives,  wholly  incompatible  with  a  spirit  of 
malignant  levity  and  hideous  sport. 

But  the  spirit  which  actuated  these  Scribes  and  Pharisees  was  not 
by  any  means  the  spirit  of  a  sincere  and  outraged  purity.  In  the  deca- 
dence of  national  life,  in  the  daily  familiarity  with  heathen  degradations, 
in  the  gradual  substitution  of  a  Levitical  scrupulosity  for  a  heartfelt 
religion,  the  morals  of  the  nation  had  grown  utterly  corrupt.  The  ordeal 
of  the  "water  of  jealousy"  had  long  been  abolished,  and  the  death  by 
stoning  as  a  punishment  for  adultery  had  been  suffered  to  fall  into 
desuetude. 

Not  even  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees — for  all  their  external 
religiosity — had  any  genuine  horror  of  an  impurity  with  which  their  own 

1  It  is  observable  that  in  no  other  passage  of  St.  John's  Gospel  (though   frequently  in  the  Synoptists> 
are  the  Scribes  mentioned  among  the  enemies  of  Christ ;  but  here  a  few  MSS.  read  "  the  chief  prifts." 

2  See  Numb.  v.  14 — 29. 


37^  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

lives  were  often  stained.'  They  saw  in  the  accident  which  had  put  this 
guilty  woman  into  their  power  nothing  but  a  chance  of  annoying, 
entrapping,  possibly  even  endangering  this  Prophet  of  Galilee,  whom 
they  already  regarded  as  their  deadliest   enemy. 

It  was  a  custom  among  the  Jews  to  consult  distinguished  Rabbis  in 
cases  of  doubt  and  difficulty  ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  or  difficulty  here. 
It  was  long  since  the  Mosaic  law  of  death  to  the  adulteress  had  been 
demanded  or  enforced ;  and  even  if  this  had  not  been  the  case,  the 
Roman  law  would,  in  all  probability,  have  prevented  such  a  sentence 
from  being  put  in  execution.  On  the  other  hand,  the  civil  and  religious 
penalties  of  divorce  were  open  to  the  injured  husband  ;  nor  did  the  case 
of  this  woman  differ  from  that  of  any  other  who  had  similarly  trans- 
gressed. Nor,  again,  even  if  they  had  honestly  and  sincerely  desired  the 
opinion  of  Jesus,  could  there  have  been  the  slightest  excuse  for  haling 
the  woman  herself  into  His  presence,  and  thus  subjecting  her  to  a  moral 
torture  which  would  be  rendered  all  the  more  insupportable  from  the 
close  seclusion  of  women  in  the  East. 

And,  therefore,  to  subject  her  to  the  superfluous  horror  of  this  odious 
publicity — to  drag  her,  fresh  from  the  agony  of  detection,  into  the  sacred 
precincts  of  the  Temple' — to  subject  this  unveiled,  disheveled,  terror- 
stricken  woman  to  the  cold  and  sensual  curiosity  of  a  malignant  mob — 
to  make  her,  with  total  disregard  to  her  own  sufferings,  the  mere  passive 
instrument  of  their  hatred  against  Jesus — and  to  do  all  this,  not  under 
the  pressure  of  moral  indignation,  but  in  order  to  gratify  a  calculating 
malice — showed  on  their  parts  a  cold,  hard  cynicism,  a  graceless,  pitiless, 
barbarous  brutality  of  heart  and  conscience,  which  could  not  but  prove, 
in  every  particular,  revolting  and  hateful  to  One  who  alone  was  infinitely 
tender,  because  He  alone  was  infinitely  pure. 

And  so  they  dragged  her  to  Him,  and  set  her  in  the  midst — flagrant 
guilt  subjected  to  the  gaze  of  stainless  Innocence,  degraded  misery  set 
before  the  bar  of  perfect  Mercy.  And  then,  just  as  though  their  hearts 
were  not  full  of  outrage,  they  glibly  begin,  with  ironical  deference,  to  set 
before  Him  their  case.     "Master,  this  woman  was  seized  in  the  very  act 

1  As  is  distinctly  proved  by  the  admissions  of  the  Talmud,  and  by  the  express  testimony  of  Josephus. 
In  the  tract  Sotak  it  is  clear  that  the  Mosaic  ordeal  of  the  "  water  of  jealousy"  had  fallen  into  practical 
desuetude  from  the  commonness  of  the  crime. 

2  It  is  indeed  said  in  the  Talmud  that  adulteresses  were  to  be  judged  at  the  gate  of  Nikanor,  between 
the  Court  of  the  Gentiles  and  that  of  the  women;  but  this  does  not  apply  to  the  mere  loose  asking  of  an 
opinion,  such  as  this  was. 


THE  WOMAN  TAKEN  IN  ADULTERY.  379 

of  adultery.  Now,  Moses  in  the  Law  commanded  us  to  stone'  suck;  but 
what  sayest    Thou  about  her?" 

They  thought  that  now  they  had  caught  Him  in  a  dilemma.  They 
knew  the  divine  trembling  pity  which  had  loved  where  others  hated,  and 
praised  where  others  scorned,  and  encouraged  where  others  crushed  ;  and 
they  knew  how  that  pity  had  won  for  Him  the  admiration  of  many,  the 
passionate  devotion  of  not  a  few.  They  knew  that  a  publican  was 
among  His  chosen,  that  sinners  had  sat  with  Him  at  the  banquet,  and 
harlots  unreproved  had  bathed  His  feet,  and  listened  to  His  words. 
Would  He  then  acquit  this  woman,  and  so  make  Himself  liable  to  an 
accusation  of  heresy,  by  placing  Himself  in  open  disaccord  with  the 
sacred  and  fiery  Law?  or,  on  the  other  hand,  would  He  belie  His  own 
compassion,  and  be  ruthless,  and  condemn?  And,  if  He  did,  would  He 
not  at  once  shock  the  multitude,  who  were  touched  by  His  tenderness, 
and  offend  the  civil  magistrates  by  making  Himself  liable  to  a  charge  of 
sedition  ?  How  could  He  possibly  get  out  of  the  difficulty  ?  Either 
alternative — heresy  or  treason — accusation  before  the  Sanhedrin  or  dela- 
tion to  the  Procurator — opposition  to  the  orthodox  or  alienation  from  the 
many — would  serve  equally  well  their  unscrupulous  intentions.  And  one 
of  these,  they  thought,  tnusi  follow.  What  a  happy  chance  this  weak, 
guilty  woman  had  given  them  ! 

Not  yet.  A  sense  of  all  their  baseness,  their  hardness,  their  malice, 
their  cynical  parade  of  every  feeling  which  pity  would  temper  and  deli- 
cacy repress,  rushed  over  the  mind  of  Jesus.  He  blushed  for  His  nation, 
for  His  race  ;  He  blushed,  not  for  the  degradation  of  the  miserable 
accused,  but  for  the  deeper  guilt  of  her  unblushing  accusers.^  Glowing 
with  uncontrollable  disgust  that  modes  of  opposition  so  irredeemable  in 
their  meanness  should  be  put  in  play  against  Him,  and  that  He  should 
be  made  the  involuntary  center  of  such  a  shameful  scene — indignant  (for 
it  cannot  be  irreverent  to  imagine  in  Him  an  intensified  degree  of  emo- 
tions which  even  the  humblest  of  His  true  followers  would  have  shared) 

1  The  "  such  "  is  contemptuous;  but  where  was  the  partner  of  her  crime  ?  The  Law  commanded  that 
he  too  should  be  put  to  death  (Lev.  xx.  lo).  As  to  stoning  being  the  proper  punishment  of  adultery,  a 
needless  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  raised  (see  Deut.  xxii.  22 — 24).  There  is  no  ground  whatever  for 
concluding  with  Lightfoot  that  she  was  merely  betrothed.  The  Rabbis  say  that  "  death,"  where  no  form 
of  it  is  specified,  is  meant  to  be  strangulation;  but  this  is  not  the  case  (compare  Exod.  xxxi.  14  with  Numb. 
XV.  32—35)- 

2  In  the  Rabbinical  treatise  Beracholk,  R.  Papa  and  others  are  reported  to  have  said  that  it  is  better  for 
a  man  to  throw  himself  into  a  furnace  than  to  make  any  one  blush  in  public,  which  they  deduced  from 
Gen.  xxxviii.  25. 


380  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORV. 

that  the  sacredness  of  His  personal  reserve  should  thus  be  shamelessly 
violated,  and  that  those  things  which  belong  to  the  sphere  of  a  noble 
reticence  should  be  thus  cynically  obtruded  on  His  notice — He  bent  His 
face  forwards  from  His  seat,  and  as  though  He  did  not,  or  would  not, 
hear  them,  stooped  and  wrote  with   His  finger  on  the  ground. 

For  any  others  but  such  as  these  it  would  have  been  enough.  Even 
if  they  failed  to  see  in  the  action  a  symbol  of  forgiveness — a  symbol 
that  the  memory  of  things  thus  written  in  the  dust  might  be  obliterated 
and  forgotten  ' — still  any  but  these  could  hardly  have  failed  to  interpret 
the  gesture  into  a  distinct  indication  that  in  such  a  matter  Jesus  would 
not  mix  Himself.'  But  they  saw  nothing  and  understood  nothing,  and 
stood  there  unabashed,  still  pressing  their  brutal  question,  still  holding, 
pointing  to,  jeering  at  the  woman,  with  no  compunction  in  their  cunning 
glances,  and  no  relenting  in  their  steeled  hearts. 

The  scene  could  not  last  any  longer  ;  and,  therefore,  raising  Himself 
from  His  stooping  attitude.  He,  who  could  read  their  hearts,  calmly 
passed  upon  them  that  sad  judgment  involved  in  the  memorable  words — 

"  Let  him  that  is  without  sin  ^  among  you,  first  cast  the  stone  at 
her."* 

It  was  not  any  abrogation  of  the  Mosaic  law  ;  it  was,  on  the  con- 
trary, an  admission  of  its  justice,  and  doubtless  it  must  have  sunk  heavily 
as  a  death-warrant  upon  the  woman's  heart.  But  it  acted  in  a  manner 
wholly  unexpected.  The  terrible  law  stood  written  ;  it  was  not  the  time, 
it  was  not  His  will,  to  rescind  it.  But  on  the  other  hand,  they  them- 
selves, by  not  acting  on  the  law,  by  referring  the  whole  question  to  Him 
as  though  it  needed  a  new  solution,  had  practically  confessed  that  the 
law  was  at  present  valid  in  theory  alone,  that  it  had  fallen  into  desuetude, 
and  that  even  with  His  authority  they  had  no  intention  of  carrying  it 
into  action.  Since,  therefore,  the  whole  proceeding  was  on  their  part 
illegal  and  irregular.  He  transfers  it  by  these  words  from  the  forum  of 
law  to  that  of  conscience.  The  judge  may  sometimes  be  obliged  to 
condemn  the  criminal  brought  before  him  for  sins  of  which  he  has  him- 
self been  guilt)^,  but  the  position  of  the  self-constituted  accuser  v/ho 
eagerly  demands  a   needless    condemnation    is    very  different.     Herein  to 

1  Comp.  Jer.  xvii.  13. 

2  It  seems  to  have  been  well  understood. 

3  i.e.,  free  from  the  taint  of  this  class  of  sins.     Cf.  Luke  vii.  37. 

4  Cf.  Deut.  xvii.  7. 


THE  WOMAN  TAKEN  IN  ADULTERY.  38 1 

condemn  her  would  have  been  in  God's  sight  most  fatally  to  have  con- 
demned themselves  ;  to  have  been  the  first  to  cast  the  stone  at  her  would 
have  been  to  crush  themselves. 

He  had  but  glanced  at  them  for  a  moment,  but  that  glance  had 
read  their  inmost  souls.  He  had  but  calmly  spoken  a  few  simple  words, 
but  those  words,  like  the  still  small  voice  to  Elijah  at  Horeb,  had  been 
more  terrible  than  wind  or  earthquake.  They  had  fallen  like  a  spark  of 
fire  upon  slumbering  hearts,  and  lay  burning  there  till  "the  blushing, 
shame-faced  spirit "  mutinied  within  them.  The  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
stood  silent  and  fearful ;  they  loosed  their  hold  upon  the  woman  ;  their 
insolent  glances,  so  full  of  guile  and  malice,  fell  guiltily  to  the  ground. 
They  who  had  unjustly  inflicted,  now  justly  felt  the  overwhelming  anguish 
of  an  intolerable  shame,  while  over  their  guilty  consciences  there  rolled, 
in  crash  on  crash  of  thunder,  such  thoughts  as  these  : — "  Therefore  thou 
art  inexcusable,  O  man,  whosoever  thou  art  that  judgest :  for  wherein 
thou  judgest  another,  thou  condemnest  thyself :  for  thou  that  judgest 
doest  the  same  things.  But  we  are  sure  that  the  judgment  of  God  is 
according  to  truth  against  them  which  commit  such  things.  And 
thinkest  thou  this,  O  man,  that  judgest  them  which  do  such  things  and 
doest  the  same,  that  thou  shalt  escape  the  judgment  of  God  ?  or 
despisest  thou  the  riches  of  His  goodness,  and  forbearance,  and  long- 
suffering  ;  not  knowing  that  the  goodness  of  God  leadeth  thee  to  repent- 
ance ?  but  after  thy  hardness  and  impenitent  heart  treasurest  up  to 
thyself  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation  of  the  righteous 
judgment  of  God,  who  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds." 
They  were  "such"  as  the  woman  they  had  condemned,  and  they  dared 
not  stay. 

And  so,  with  burning  cheeks  and  cowed  hearts,  from  the  eldest  to 
the  youngest,  one  by  one  gradually,  silently  they  slunk  away.  He  would 
not  add  to  their  shame  and  confusion  of  face  by  watching  them  :  He 
had  no  wish  further  to  reveal  His  knowledge  of  the  impure  secrets  of 
their  hearts;  He  would  not  tempt  them  to  brazen  it  out  before  Him, 
and  to  lie  against  the  testimony  of  their  own  memories  ;  He  had  stooped 
down  once  more,  and  was  writing  on  the  ground. 

And  when  He  once  more  raised  His  head,  all  the  accusers  had 
melted  away  :  only  the  woman  still  cowered  before  Him  on  the  Tem- 
ple floor.  She,  too,  might  have  gone  :  none  hindered  her,  and  it  might 
have    seemed    but    natural    that    she    should    fly  anywhere    to    escape  her 


382  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

danger,  and  to  hide  her  guilt  and  shame.  But  remorse,  and,  it  may  be, 
an  awful  trembling  gratitude,  in  which  hope  struggled  with  despair, 
fixed  her  there  before  her  Judge.  His  look,  the  most  terrible  of  all  to 
meet,  because  it  was  the  only  look  that  fell  on  her  from  a  soul  robed 
in  the  unapproachable  majesty  of  a  stainless  innocence,  was  at  the  same 
time  the  most  gentle,  and  the  most  forgiving.  Her  stay  was  a  sign  of 
her  penitence  ;  her  penitence,  let  us  trust,  a  certain  pledge  of  her  future 
forgiveness.  "Two  things,"  as  St.  Augustine  finely  says,  "were  here 
left  alone  together — Misery  and  Mercy." 

"Woman,"  He  asked,  "where  are  those  thine  accusers?  did  no  one 
convict  thee  ?  " 

"No  man.  Lord."  It  was  the  only  answer  which  her  lips  could  find 
power  to  frame  ;  and  then  she  received  the  gracious  yet  heart-searching 
permission  to   depart — 

"  Neither  do  I  convict  thee.     Gd  ;  henceforth  sin  no  more." 

Were  the  critical  evidence  against  the  genuineness  of  this  passage  far 
more  overwhelming  than  it  is,  the  story  would  yet  bear  upon  its  surface 
the  strongest  possible  proof  of  its  own  authentic  truthfulness.  It  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  mixture  which  it  displays  of  tragedy  and 
of  tenderness — the  contrast  which  it  involves  between  low,  cruel  cunning, 
and  exalted  nobility  of  intellect  and  emotion — transcends  all  power  of 
human  imagination  to  have  invented  it ;  while  the  picture  of  a  divine  in- 
sight reading  the  inmost  secrets  of  the  heart,  and  a  yet  diviner  love, 
which  sees  those  inmost  secrets  with  larger  eyes  than  ours,  furnishes  us 
with  a  conception  of  the  power  and  person  of  Jesus  at  once  too  lofty 
and  too  original  to  have  been  founded  on  anything  but  fact.  No  one 
could  have  invented,  for  few  could  even  appreciate,  the  sovereign  purity 
and  ineffable  charm — the  serene  authority  of  condemnation,  and  of 
pardon — by  which  the  story  is  so  deeply  characterized.  The  repeated 
instances  in  which,  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  He  foiled  the  crafty 
designs  of  His  enemies,  and  in  foiling  them  taught  for  ever  some  eternal 
principle  of  thought  and  action,  are  among  the  most  unique  and  decisive 
proofs  of  His  more  than  human  wisdom;  and  yet  not  one  of  those 
gleams  of  sacred  light  which  were  struck  from  Him  by  collision  with  the 
malice  or  hate  of  man  was  brighter  or  more  beautiful  than  this.  The 
very  fact  that  the  narrative  found  so  little  favor  in  the  early  centuries  of 
Church  history — the  fact  that  whole  Churches  regarded  the  narrative  as 
dangerous  in  its  tendency — the  fact  that  eminent  Fathers  of    the  Church 


THE  WOMAN  TAKEN  IN  ADULTERY.  3S3 

eiiner  ignore  it,  or  speak  of  it  in  a  semi-apologetic  tone — in  these  facts 
we  see  the  most  decisive  proof  that  its  real  moral  and  meaning  are  too 
transcendent  to  admit  of  its  having  been  originally  invented,  or  in- 
terpolated without  adequate  authority  into  the  sacred  text.  Yet  it  is 
strange  that  any  should  have  failed  to  see  that  in  the  ray  of  mercy  which 
thus  streamed  from  heaven  upon  the  wretched  sinner,  the  sin  assumed  an 
aspect  tenfold  more  heinous,  tenfold  more  repulsive  to  the  conscience  of 
mankind — to  every  conscience  which  accepts  it  as  a  law  of  life  that  it 
should  strive  to  be  holy  as  God  is  holy,  and  pure  as    He  is  pure. 

However  painful  this  scene  must  have  been  to  the  holy  and  loving 
heart  of  the  Saviour,  it  was  at  least  alleviated  by  the  sense  of  that  com- 
passionate deliverance — deliverance,  we  may  trust,  for  Eternity,  no  less 
than  Time— which  it  had  wrought  for  one  guilty  soul.  But  the  scenes 
that  followed  were  a  climax  of  perpetual  misunderstandings,  fluctuating 
impressions,  and  bitter  taunts,  which  caused  the  great  and  joyous  festival 
to  end  with  a  sudden  burst  of  rage,  and  an  attempt  of  the  Jewish  lead- 
ers to  make  an  end  of  Him — not  by  public  accusation,  but  by  furious 
violence. 

For,  on  the  same  day — the  eighth  day  of  the  feast  if  the  last  narra- 
tive has  got  displaced,  the  day  after  the  feast  if  it  belongs  to  the  true 
sequence  of  events — Jesus  continued  those  interrupted  discourses  which 
were  intended  almost  for  the  last  time  to  set  clearly  before  the  Jewish 
nation  His  divine  claims. 

He  was  seated  at  that  moment  in  the  Treasury — either  some  special 
building'  in  the  Temple  so  called,  or  that  part  of  the  court  of  the 
women  which  contained  the  thirteen  chests  with  trumpet-shaped  openings — 
called  shopheroth — into  which  the  people,  and  especially  the  Pharisees,  used 
to  cast  their  gifts. 

In  this  court,  and  therefore  close  beside  Him,  were  two  gigantic 
candelabrums,  fifty  cubits  high  and  sumptuously  gilded,'  on  the 
summit  of  which,  nightly,  during  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  lamps  were  lit 
which  shed  their  soft  light  over  all  the  city.  Round  these  lamps  the  people, 
in  their  joyful  enthusiasm,  and  even  the  stateliest  Priests  and  Pharisees, 
joined  in  festal  dances,  while,  to  the  sound  of  flutes  and  other  music,  the 
Levites,  drawn  up    in    array  on    the    fifteen    steps  which    led    up    to    the 

1  Compare  Luke  xxi.  i;  Mark  xii.  41. 

2  Pictures  of  these  :.olossal  lamps  are  given.     The  wicks  of  the  four  lamps  which  stood  on  each  can- 
delabrum were  made  of  the  cast-off  clothes  of  the  priests. 


384  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

court,    chanted    the    beautiful    Psalms  which    early  received    the    title    of 
"  Songs  of  Degrees."  ' 

In  allusion  to  these  great  lamps,  on  which  some  circumstance  of  the 
moment  may  have  concentrated  the  attention  of  the  hearers,  Christ 
exclaimed  to  them,  "  I  am  the  Light  of  the  world."  It  was  His  constant 
plan  to  shape  the  illustrations  of  His  discourses  by  those  external  inci- 
dents which  would  rouse  the  deepest  attention,  and  fix  the  words  most 
indelibly  on  the  memories  of  His  hearers.  The  Pharisees  who  heard 
His  words  charged  Him  with  idle  self-glorification  ;  but  He  showed  them 
that  He  had  His  Father's  testimony,  and  that  even  were  it  not  so,  the 
Light  can  only  be  seen,  only  be  known,  by  the  evidence  of  its  own 
existence  ;  without  it,  neither  itself  nor  anything  else  is  visible.  They 
asked  Him,  "Where  is  Thy  Father?"  He  told  them  that,  not  knowing 
Him,  they  could  not  know  His  Father;  and  then  He  once  more  sadly 
warned  them  that  His  departure  was  nigh,  and  that  then  they  would  be 
unable  to  come  to  Him.  Their  only  reply  was  a  taunting  inquiry 
whether,  by  committing  suicide,  He  meant  to  plunge  Himself  in  the 
darkest  regions  of  the  grave?  Nay,  He  made  them  understand,  it  was 
they,  not  He,  who  were  from  below — they,  not  He,  who  were  destined, 
if  they  persisted  in  unbelief  of  His  eternal  existence,  to  that  dark  end. 
"  Who  art  thou  ?"  they  once  more  asked,  in  angry  and  faithless  perplexity 
"Altogether  that  which  I  am  telling  you,"  He  calmly  answered.  They 
wanted  Him  to  announce  Himself  as  the  Messiah,  and  so  become  their 
temporal  deliverer;  but  He  will  only  tell  them  the  far  deeper,  more 
eternal  truths,  that  He  is  the  Light,  and  the  Life,  and  the  Living  Water, 
and  that  He  came  from  the  Father — as  they,  too,  should  know  when 
they  had  lifted  Him  up  upon  the  cross.  They  were  looking  solely  for 
the  Messiah  of  the  Jews:  He  would  have  them  know  Him  as  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world,  the  Saviour  of  their  souls. 

As  they  heard  Him  speak,  many,  even  of  these  fierce  enemies,  were 
won  over  to  a  belief  in  Him  :  but  it  was  a  wavering  belief,  a  half  belief,  a 
false  belief,  a  belief  mingled  with  a  thousand  worldly  and  erroneous  fancies, 
not  a  belief  which  had  in  it  any  saving  power,  or  on  which  He  could  rely. 
And  He  put  it  to  an  immediate  test,  which  revealed  its  hoUowness,  and 
changed  it  into  mad  hatred.  He  told  them  that  faithfulness  and  obedi- 
ence were  the  marks  of  true  discipleship,  and  the  requisites  of 
true    freedom.     The  word  freedom  acted    as    a    touchstone    to    show    the 

I  Ps.  cxx. — cxxxiv. 


THE  WOMAN  TAKEN  IN  ADULTERY.  385 

spuriousness  of  their  incipient  faith.  They  knew  of  no  freedom  but  that 
political  freedom  which  they  falsely  asserted  ;  they  resented  the  promise 
of  future  spiritual  freedom  in  lieu  of  the  achievement  of  present  national 
freedom.  So  Jesus  showed  them  that  they  were  still  the  slaves  of  sin, 
and  in  name  only,  not  in  reality,  the  children  of  Abraham,  or  the  chil- 
dren of  God.  They  were  absorbed  with  pride  when  they  thought  of  the 
purity  of  their  ancestral  origin,  and  the  privilege  of  their  exclusive 
monotheism  ; '  but  He  told  them  that  in  very  truth  they  were,  by  spirit- 
ual affinity,  the  affinity  of  cruelty  and  falsehood, =  children  of  him  who 
was  a  liar  and  a  murderer  from  the  beginning — children  of  the  devil.^ 
That  home-rebuke  stung  them  to  fury.  They  repaid  it  by  calling  Jesus 
a  Samaritan,  and  a  demoniac*  Our  Lord  gently  put  the  taunt  aside, 
and  once  more  held  out  to  them  the  gracious  promise  that  if  they  will 
but  keep  His  sayings,  they  not  only  shall  not  die  in  their  sins,  but 
shall  not  see  death.  Their  dull,  blind  hearts  could  not  even  imagine  a 
spiritual  meaning  in  His  words.  They  could  only  charge  Him  with 
demoniac  arrogance  and  insolence  in  making  Himself  greater  than  Abra- 
ham and  the  prophets,  of  whom  they  could  only  think  as  dead.^  Jesus 
told  them  that  in  prophetic  vision,  perhaps  too  by  spiritual  intuition,  in 
that  other  world,  Abraham,  who  was  not  dead,  but  living,  saw  and  re- 
joiced to  see  His  day.  Such  an  assertion  appeared  to  them  either  sense- 
less or  blasphemous.  "  Abraham  has  been  dead  for  seventeen  centuries  ; 
Thou  art  not  even  fifty*  years  old;  how  are  we  to  understand  such 
words  as  these?"  Then  very  gently,  but  with  great  solemnity,  and  with 
that  formula  of  asseveration  which  He  only  used  when  He  announced 
His  most  solemn  truths,  the  Saviour  revealed  to  them   His  eternity.    His 

I.  Alike  the  Bible  and  the  Talmud  abound  in  proofs  of  the  intense  national  arrogance  with  which  the 
Jews  regarded  their  religion  and  their  descent. 

2  John  viii.  44.  Untruthfulness  seems  to  have  been  in  all  ages  a  failing  of  the  Jewish  national 
character.     "  Listen  to  all,  but  belirje  no  one — not  even  me,"  said  the  Hebrew  poet  Sapir  to  Dr.  Frankl. 

3.  I  am  aware  that  some  make  Jesus  call  the  Jews  not  "children,"  huX.  "  brethren  ol  iiie  devW,"  and 
rendering  the  end  of  verse  44  "  he  is  a  liar,  and  his  father  too ; "  but  I  do  not  understand  this  demonology. 

4  John  viii.  48,  "Thou  art  a  Samaritan  "  (what  intense  national  hatred  breathes  in  the  words!),  "and 
hast  a  demon."     Similarly  the  Arabs  attribute  all  madness  to  evil  spirits. 

5  Luke  xvi.  22 ;  Matt.  xxii.  32. 

6  In  some  valueless  MSS.  this  is  quite  needlessly  corrected  into  "forty."  It  is  strange  that  modern 
writers  like  Gfrorer  should  have  revived  the  mistaken  inference  of  Irenaeus  from  this  verse  that  Jesus  lived 
fifty  years  on  earth.  The  belief  that  He  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  may  be  regarded  as  nearly  certain, 
and  it  cannot  even  be  safely  conjectured  from  this  passage  either  that  the  sorrows  of  His  lot  had  marred 
His  visage,  or  that  the  deep  seriousness  of  His  expression  made  Him  appear  older  than  He  was.  It  is  obvious 
that  the  Jews  are  speaking  generally,  and  in  round  numbers:  "  Thou  hast  not  yet  retuhid  even  t  lie  full  year  >  of 
monhood,  and  hast  Thoti  seen  Abraham  ?" 

25 


386  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Divine  pre-existence    before    He    had    entered    the  tabernacle   of   mortal 

flesh: 

"  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  Before  Abraham  came  into  existence, 
I  am." ' 

Then,  with  a  burst  of  impetuous  fury — one  of  those  paroxysms  of 
sudden,  uncontrollable,  frantic  rage  to  which  this  people  has  in  all  ages 
been  liable  upon  any  collision  with  its  religious  convictions — they  took 
up  stones  to  stone  Him.'  But  the  very  blindness  of  their  rage  made  it 
more  easy  to  elude  them.  His  hour  was  not  yet  come.  With  perfect 
calmness  He  departed  unhurt  out  of  the  Temple. 

I  John  viii.  58,  "  before  Abraham  came  into  existence,  I  am."  There  could  be  no  more  distinct  asser- 
tion of  His  Divine  nature.  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere  that  those  who  deny  this  must  either  prove  that 
He  never  spoke  those  words,  or  must  believe  that  He — the  most  lowly  and  sinless  and  meek-hearted  of 
men— was  guilty  of  a  colossal  and  almost  phrenetic  intoxication  of  vanity  and  arrogance.  For  the  Jews, 
more  intensely  than  any  other  nation  which  the  world  has  ever  known,  recognized  the  infinite  transcendence 
of  God,  and  therefore  for  a  Jew,  being  merely  man,  to  claim  Divinity,  would  not  only  be  inconsistent  with 
ordinary  sense  and  virtue,  but  inconsistent  with  anything  but  sheer  blasphemous  insanity. 

a  The  unfinished  state  of  the  Temple  buildings  would  supply  them  with  huge  stones  close  at  hand. 


CHAPTER   XL  I. 


THE      MAN      BORN      BLIND. 


"  He  from  thick  films  shall  purge  the  visual  ray. 
And  on  the  sightless  eyeball  pour  the  day." — Pop«. 


ITHER  on  His  way  from  the  Temple,  after  this 
attempted  assault,  or  on  the  next  ensuing  Sab- 
bath,' Jesus,  as  He  passed  by,  saw  a  man  blind 
from  his  birth,  who,  perhaps,  announced  his 
miserable  condition  as  he  sat  begging  by  the 
roadside,  and  at    the  Temple  gate. 

All  the  Jews  were  trained  to  regard  special 
suffering  as  the  necessary  and  immediate  conse- 
quence of  special  sin.  Perhaps  the  disciples 
supposed  that  the  words  of  our  Lord  to  the 
paralytic  whom  He  had  healed  at  the  Pool  of 
Bethesda,  as  well  as  to  the  paralytic  at  Capernaum,  might 
seem  to  sanction  such  an  impression."  They  asked,  there- 
fore, how  this  man  came  to  be  born  blind.  Could  it  be  in 
consequence  of  the  sins  of  his  parents?  If  not,  was  there 
any  way  of  supposing  that  it  could  have  been  for  his  own  ?  The  sup- 
position in  the  former  case  seemed  hard  ;  in  the  latter,  impossible.^  They 
were  therefore  perplexed. 

Into  the  uprofitable  regions  of  such  barren  speculation  our  Lord 
refused  to  follow  them,  and  He  declined,  as  always,  the  tendency  to 
infer  and  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  sins  of  others.  Neither  the  man's 
sins,   He  told  them,  nor    those    of  his  parents,  had  caused  that    life  long 

1  It  is  impossible  to  decide  between  these  alternatives.  If  it  was  on  the  same  Sabbath,  the  extreme 
calmness  of  our  Lord,  immediately  after  circumstances  of  such  intense  excitement,  would  be  very 
noticeable.  In  either  case  the  narrative  implies  that  the  ebullition  of  homicidal  fury  against  Him  was 
transient. 

2  John  V.  14. 

3  Exod.  XX.  5.  We  can  hardly  imagine  that  those  simple-minded  Galileans  were  familiar  with  the 
doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  or  the  Rabbinic  dogma  of  ante-natal  sin  ;  or  the  Platonic  and  Alexandrian 
fancy  of  pre-existence  ;  or  the  modern  conception  of  proleptic  punishment  for  sins  anticipated  by  fore- 
knowledge. 

3»7 


388  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

afifliction  ;  but  now,  by  means  of  it,"  the  works  of  God  should  be 
made  manifest.  He,  the  Light  of  the  world,  must  for  a  short  time  longer 
dispel  its  darkness.  Then  He  spat  on  the  ground,  made  clay  with  the 
spittle,  and  smearing  it  on  the  blind  man's  eyes,  bade  him  "  go  wash  in 
the  Pool  of  Siloam."     The  blind  man  went,  washed,  and  was  healed. 

The  saliva  of  one  who  had  not  recently  broken  his  fast  was  believed 
among  the  ancients  to  have  a  healing  efficacy  in  cases  of  weak  eyes,  and 
clay  was  occasionally  used  to  repress  tumors  on  the  eyelids.  But 
that  these  instruments  in  no  way  detracted  from  the  splendor  of  the 
miracle  is  obvious  ;  and  we  have  no  means  of  deciding  in  this,  any  more 
than  in  the  parallel  instances,  why  our  Lord,  who  sometimes  healed  by 
a  word,  preferred  at  other  times  to  adopt  slow  and  more  elaborate 
methods  of  giving  effect  to  His  supernatural  power.  In  this  matter  He 
never  revealed  the  principles  of  action  which  doubtless  arose  from  His 
inner  knowledge  of  the  circumstances,  and  from  His  insight  into  the 
hearts  of  those  on  whom  His  cures  were  wrought.  Possibly  He  had 
acted  with  the  express  view  of  teaching  more  than  one  eternal  lesson  by 
the  incidents  which  followed. 

At  any  rate,  in  this  instance,  His  mode  of  action  led  to  serious 
results.  For  the  man  had  been  well  known  in  Jerusalem  as  one  who 
had  been  a.  blind  beggar  all  his  life,  and  his  appearance  with  the  use  of 
his  eyesight  caused  a  tumult  of  excitement.  Scarcely  could  those  who 
had  known  him  best  believe  even  his  own  testimony,  that  he  was 
indeed  the  blind  beggar  with  whom  they  had  been  so  familiar.  They 
were  lost  in  amazement,  and  made  him  repeat  again  and  again  the  story 
of  his  cure.  But  that  story  infused  into  their  astonishment  a  fresh 
element  of  Pharisaic  indignation  ;  for  this  cure  also  had  been  wrought 
on  a  Sabbath  day.  The  Rabbis  had  forbidden  any  man  to  smear  even 
one  of  his  eyes  with  spittle  on  the  Sabbath,  except  in  cases  of  mortal 
danger.  Jesus  had  not  only  smeared  both  the  man's  eyes,  but  had  actually 
mingled  the  saliva  with  clay  !  This,  as  an  act  of  mercy,  was  in  the 
deepest  and  most  inward  accordance  with  the  very  causes  for  which  the 
Sabbath  had  been  ordained,  and  the  very  lessons  of  which  it  was  meant 
to  be  a  perpetual  witness.  But  the  spirit  of  narrow  literalism  and  slavish 
minuteness  and  quantitative  obedience — the  spirit  that  hoped  to  be  saved 
by  the  algebraical  sum  of  good  and  bad  actions— had  long  degraded  the 

I  The  Greek  idiom   does  not  here  imply,  as  its  literal  English  equivalent  appears  to  do,  that  the  man 
had  been  born-  blind  solely  in  order  that  God's  glory  might  be  manifested  in  his  healing. 


THE  MAN  BORN  BLIND.  3S9 

Sabbath  from  the  true  idea  of  its  institution  into  a  pernicious  superstition. 
The  Sabbath  of  Rabbinism,  with  all  its  petty  servility,  was  in  no  respect 
the  Sabbath  of  God's  loving  and  holy  law.  It  had  degenerated  into  that 
which  St  Paul  calls  it,  a  "beggarly  element."" 

And  these  Jews  were  so  imbued  with  this  utter  littleness,  that  a 
unique  miracle  of  mercy  awoke  in  them  less  of  astonishment  and  gratitude 
than  the  horror  kindled  by  a  neglect  of  their  Sabbatical  superstition. 
Accordingly,  in  all  the  zeal  of  letter-worshipping  religionism,  they  led  off 
the  man  to  the  Pharisees  in  council.  Then  followed  the  scene  which  St. 
John  has  recorded  in  a  manner  so  inimitably  graphic  in  his  ninth 
chapter.  First  came  the  repeated  inquiry,  "  how  the  thing  had  been 
done?"  followed  by  the  repeated  assertion  of  some  of  them  that  Jesus 
could  not  be  from  God,  because  He  had  not  observed  the  Sabbath  ;  and 
the  reply  of  others  that  to  press  the  Sabbath-breaking  was  to  admit  the 
miracle,  and  to  admit  the  miracle  was  to  establish  the  fact  that  He  who 
performed  it  could  not  be  the  criminal  whom  the  others  described.  Then, 
being  completely  at  a  standstill,  they  asked  the  blind  man  his  opinion  of 
his  deliverer  ;  and  he — not  being  involved  in  their  vicious  circle  of 
reasoning — replied  with  fearless  promptitude,    "  He  is  a  Prophet."^ 

By  this  time  they  saw  the  kind  of  nature  with  which  they  had  to 
deal,  and  anxious  for  any  loophole  by  which  they  could  deny  or  set  aside 
the  miracle,  they  sent  for  the  man's  parents.  "Was  this  their  son?  If 
they  asserted  that  he  had  been  born  blind,  how  was  it  that  he  now  saw?" 
Perhaps  they  hoped  to  browbeat  or  bribe  these  parents  into  a  denial  of 
their  relationship,  or  an  admission  of  imposture ;  but  the  parents  also 
clung  to  the  plain  truth,  while,  with  a  certain  Judaic  servility  and  cunning, 
they  refused  to  draw  any  inferences  which  would  lay  them  open  to  un- 
pleasant consequences.  "  This  is  certainly  our  son,  and  he  was  certainly 
born  blind  ;  as  to  the  rest,  we  know  nothing.  Ask  him.  He  is  quite 
capable  of  answering  for  himself." 

Then — one  almost  pities  their  sheer  perplexity — they  turned  to  the 
blind  man  again.  He,  as  well  as  his  parents,  knew  that  the  Jewish 
authorities  bad  agreed  to  pronounce  the  cheretn,  or  ban  of  exclusion  from 
the  synagogue,  on  any  one  who  should  venture  to  acknowledge  Jesus  as 

1  Gal.  iv.  9. 

2  And  the  Jews  themselves  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  if  a  prophet  of  undoubted  credentials  should 
command  all  persons  to  light  fires  on  the  Sabbath  day,  arm  themselves  for  war,  kill  the  inhabitants, 
&c.,  it  would  behove  all  to  riss  up  without  delay  and  execute  all  that  he  should  direct  without  scruple  or 
hesitation." 


390  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  Messiah  ;  and  the  Pharisees  probably  hoped  that  he  would  be  content 
to  follow  their  advice,  to  give  glory  to  God,"  i.e.,  deny  or  ignore  the 
miracle,  and  to  accept  their  dictum  that  Jesus  was  a  sinner. 

But  the  man  was  made  of  sturdier  stuff  than  his  parents.  He  was 
not  to  be  overawed  by  their  authority,  or  knocked  down  by  their  asser- 
tions. He  breathed  quite  freely  in  the  halo-atmosphere  of  their  superior 
sanctity.  "  VVe  know"  the  Pharisees  had  said,  "that  this  man  is  a  sinner." 
"Whether  He  is  a  sinner,"  the  man  replied,  "/  do  not  know;  one  thing 
I  do  know,  that,  being  blind,  now  I  see."  Then  they  began  again  their 
weary  and  futile  cross-examination.  "What  did  He  do  to  thee?  how  did 
He  open  thine  eyes?"  But  the  man  had  had  enough  of  this.  "I  told 
you  once,  and  ye  did  not  attend.  Why  do  ye  wish  to  hear  again?  Is 
it  possible  that  ye  too  wish  to  be  His  disciples?"  Bold  irony  this — to 
ask  these  stately,  ruffled,  scrupulous  Sanhedrists,  whether  he  was  really 
to  regard  them  as  anxious  and  sincere  inquirers  about  the  claims  of  the 
Nazarene  Prophet !  Clearly  here  was  a  man  whose  presumptuous  honesty 
would  neither  be  bullied  into  suppression  or  corrupted  into  a  lie.  He 
was  quite  impracticable.  So,  since  authority,  threats,  blandishments  had 
all  failed,  they  broke  into  abuse.  "  Thou  art  His  disciple:  we  are  the 
disciples  of  Moses  ;  of  this  man  we  know  nothing."  "  Strange,"  he  re- 
plied, "thdityon  should  know  nothing  of  a  man  who  yet  has  wrought  a 
miracle  such  as  not  even  Moses  ever  wrought ;  and  we  know  that  neither 
He  nor  any  one  else  could  have  done  it,  unless  He  were  from  God."' 
What!  shades  of  Hillel  and  of  Shammai  !  was  a  mere  blind  beggar,  a 
natural  ignorant  heretic,  altogether  born  in  sins,  to  be  teaching  them  .^ 
Unable  to  control  any  longer  their  transport  of  indignation,  they  flung 
him  out  of  the  hall,  and  out  of  the  synagogue. 

But  Jesus  did  not  neglect  His  first  confessor.  He,  too,  in  all  probability 
had,  either  at  this  or  some  previous  time,  been  placed  under  the  ban  of 
lesser  excommunication,  or  exclusion  from  the  synagogue  ;3  for  we  scarcely 
ever  again  read  of  His  re-entering  any  of  those  synagogues  which,  during 

1  "  As  if  they  would  bind  him  to  the  strictest  truthfulness."  "  The  words  are  an  adjuration  to  tell  the 
truth  (comp.  Josh.  vii.  19),"  says  Dean  Alford;  but  he  seems  to  confuse  it  with  the  phrase  like  Al-hamdu 
iilldh,  "to  God  be  the  praise"  (of  your  care),  which  is  a  different  thing,  and  would  require  the  glory.  A 
friend  refers  me  to  2  Cor.  xi.  31  for  a  similar  adjuration;  cf.  Rom.  ix.  i,  5. 

2  There  is  no  healing  of  the  blind  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  in  the  Acts. 

3  It  is  true  that  this  mildest  form  of  excommunication  was  only  temporary,  for  thirty  days  ;  and  that 
it  applied  to  only  one  synagogue.  But  if  it  were  once  pronounced,  the  time  could  easily  be  extended,  so 
as  to  make  it  for  ninety  days,  and  the  decree  be  adopted  by  other  synagogues.  Exclusion  from  the  syna- 
gogue  did   not,    however,    involve  exclusion  from  the  Temple,  where  a  separate  door    was   provided   for 


THE  MAN  BORN  BLIND.  391 

the  earlier  years  of  His  ministry,  had  been  His  favorite  places  of  teaching- 
and  resort.  He  sought  out  and  found  the  man,  and  asked  him,  "  Dost 
tJiou  beHeve  on  the  Son  of  God?"  "Why,  who  is  He,  Lord,"  answered 
the  man,   "that  I  should  believe  on   Him?" 

"Thou   hast  both    seen  Him,  and  it  is  He  who    talketh  with  thee."' 

"  Lord,   I  believe,"  he  answered  ;  and  he  did  Him  reverence. 

It  must  have  been  shortly  after  this  time  that  our  Lord  pointed  the 
contrast  between  the  different  effects  of  His  teaching — they  who  saw  not, 
made  to  see ;  and  those  who  saw,  made  blind.  The  Pharisees,  ever  rest- 
lessly and  discontentedly  hovering  about  Him,  and  in  their  morbid  egotism 
always  on  the  lookout  for  some  reflection  on  themselves,  asked  "  if  they 
too  were  blind."  The  answer  of  Jesus  was,  that  in  natural  blindness  there 
would  have  been  no  guilt,  but  to  those  who  only  stumbled  in  the  blind- 
ness of  willful  error  a  claim  to  the  possession  of  sight  was  a  self-con- 
demnation. 

And  when  the  leaders,  the  teachers,  the  guides  were  blind,  how  could 
the  people  see  ? 

The  thought  naturally  led  Him  to  the  nature  of  true  and  false 
teachers,  which  He  expanded  and  illustrated  in  the  beautiful  apologue — 
half  parable,  half  allegory — of  the  True  and  the  False  Shepherds.  He 
told  them  that  He  was  the  Good  Shepherd,  who  laid  down  His  life  for 
the  sheep ;  while  the  hireling  shepherds,  flying  from  danger,  betrayed 
their  flocks.  He,  too,  was  that  door  of  the  sheepfold,  by  which  all  His 
true  predecessors  alone  had  entered,  while  all  the  false — from  the  first 
thief  who  had  climbed  into  God's  fold — had  broken  in  some  other  way. 
And  then  He  told  them  that  of  His  own  free  will  He  would  lay  down 
His  life  for  the  sheep,  both  of  this  and  of  His  other  flocks, ''  and  that 
of  His  own  power  He  would  take  it  again.  But  all  these  divine  mys- 
teries were  more  than  they  could  understand  ;  and  while  some  declared 
that  they  were  the  nonsense  of  one  who  had  a  devil  and  was  mad, 
others  could  only  plead  that  they  were  not  like  the  words  of  one  who 
had  a  devil,  and  that  a  devil  could  not  have  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind. 

the  excommunicate.  The  last  stage  of  excommunication  was  the  "  forbiddal  of  water  and  fire."  The  Jews 
declare  that  Joshua  Ben  Perachiah  had  been  the  teacher  of  Jesus,  and  excommunicated  Him  to  the  blast 
of  400  rams'-horns.  But  this  Joshua  Ben  Perachiah  lived  in  the  reign  of  Alexander  Jannaeus,  who 
died  B.C.  79  ! 

1  Professor  Westcott  points  out  the  striking  fact  that  this  spontaneous  revelation  to  the  outcast  from 
the  synagogue  yf«(i>  jVj  only  parallel  in  the  similar  revelation  (John  iv.  26)  to  the  outcast  from  the  nation. 

2  In  John  X.  16,  there  is  an  unfortunate  obliteration  of  the  distinction  between  the  "fold  "  and  "flock" 
of  the  original. 


392 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


Thus,  with  but  little  fruit  for  them,  save  the  bitter  fruit  of  anger 
and  hatred,  ended  the  visit  of  Jesus  to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  And 
since  His  very  life  was  now  in  danger,  He  withdrew  once  more  from 
Jerusalem  to  Galilee,  for  one  brief  visit  before  He  bade  to  His  old  home 
His  last  farewell. 


THE    GOOD    SHEPHERD. John  X.   11. 


ciiKisr    IN   THK  r.AKDKN. —  Liike  xxii.  39. 


CHAPTER     XLII. 


FAREWELL    TO    GALILEE. 


"  I  see  that  all  things  come  to  an  end  ;  but  thy  commandment  is  exceeding  broad. 


-Ps.  cxix.  96. 


MMEDIATELY  after  the  events  just  recorded, 
St.  John  narrates  another  incident  which  took 
place  two  months  subsequently,  at  the  winter 
Feast  of  Dedication."  In  accordance  with  the 
main  purpose  of  his  'Gospel,  which  was  to  nar- 
rate that  work  of  the  Christ  in  Judea,  and  espe- 
cially in  Jerusalem,  which  the  Synoptists  had 
omitted,  he  says  nothing  of  an  intermediate  and 
final  visit  to  Galilee,  or  of  those  last  journeys 
to  Jerusalem  respecting  parts  of  which  the  other 
Evangelists  supply  us  with  so  many  details. 
And  yet  that  Jesus  must  have  returned  to  Gal- 
ilee is  clear,  not  only  from  the  other  Evangelists, 
but  also  from  the  nature  of  the  case  and  from 
certain  incidental  facts  in  the  narrative  of  St.  John  himself.^ 

It  is  well  known  that  the  whole  of  one  great  section  in  St.  Luke — 
from  ix.  51  to  xviii.  15 — forms  an  episode  in  the  Gospel  narrative  of 
which  many  incidents  are  narrated  by  this  Evangelist  alone,  and  in 
which  the  few  identifications  of  time  and  place  all  point  to  one  slow  and 
solemn  progress  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem  (ix.  51  ;  xiii.  22;  xvii.  11  ;  x. 
38).  Now  after  the  Feast  of  Dedication  our  Lord  retired  into  Per^ea, 
until  He  was  summoned  thence  by  the  death  of  Lazarus  (John  x.  40 — 
42  ;  xi.    I — 46)  ;    after    the  resurrection    of    Lazarus,   He  fled    to    Ephraim 

1  John  X.  22 — 42.  The  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was  at  the  end  of  September  or  early  in  October.  The 
Dedication  was  on  December  20. 

2  See  John  x.  25  (which  evidently  refers  to  His  last  discourse  to  them  two  months  before)  and  40 
("  again  ").  Besides,  the  expression  of  John  x.  22,  "  And  it  was  the  Dedication  at  Jerusalem,"  would  have 
little  meaning  if  a  new  visit  were  not  implied  ;  and  those  words  are  perhaps  added  for  the  very  reason  that 
the  Dedication  might  be  kept  anywhere  else. 


394  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

(xi.  54)  ;  and  He  did  not  leave  His  retirement  at  Ephraim  until  He 
went  to  Bethany,  six  days  before  His  final  Passover  (xii.  i).  This  great 
journey,  therefore,  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem,  so  rich  in  occasions  which 
called  forth  some  of  His  most  memorable  utterances,  must  have  been 
either  a  journey  to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  or  to  the  Feast  of  Dedi- 
cation. That  it  could  not  have  been  the  former  may  be  regarded  as 
settled,  not  only  on  other  grounds,  but  decisively  because  that  was  a 
rapid  and  a  secret  journey,  this  an  eminently  public  and  leisurely  one. 
Almost  every  inquirer  seems  to  differ  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  as 
to  the  exact  sequence  and  chronology  of  the  events  which  follow.  With- 
out entering  into  minute  and  tedious  disquisitions  where  absolute  certainty 
is  impossible,  I  will  narrate  this  period  of  our  Lord's  life  in  the  order 
which,  after  repeated  study  of  the  Gospels,  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
most  probable,  and  in  the  separate  details  of  which  I  have  found  myself 
again  and  again  confirmed  by  the  conclusions  of  other  independent 
inquirers.     And  here  I  will  only  premise  my  conviction — 

1.  That  the  episode  of  St.  Luke  up  to  xviii.  30,  mainly  refers  to  a 
single  journey,  although  unity  of  subject,  or  other  causes,  may  have  led 
the  sacred  writer  to  weave  into  his  narrative  some  events  or  utterances 
which  belong  to  an  earlier  or  later  epoch. ' 

2.  That  the  order  of  the  facts  narrated  even  by  St.  Luke  alone  is 
not,''  and  does  not  in  any  way  claim  to  be,^  strictly  chronological  ;  so 
that  the  place  of  any  event  in  the  narrative  by  no  means  necessarily 
indicates  its  true  position  in  the  order  of  time. 

3.  That  this  journey  is  identical  with  that  which  is  partially  recorded 
in   Matt,  xviii.    i — xx.    16;  Mark  x.    i — 31. 

4.  That    (as    seems     obvious     from     internal     evidence*)    the     events 

1  E.g.,  ix.  57 — 62  (cf.  Matt.  viii.  ig — 22);  xi.  i — 13  (cf.  Matt.  vi.  9 — 15;  vii.  7 — 12);  xi.  14 — 26  (cf. 
Matt.  ix.  32 — 35) ;  xi.  29 — xii.  59  (compared  with  parts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  &c.).  Of  course  the 
dull  and  recklessly  adopted  hypothesis  of  a  constant  repetition  of  incidents  may  here  come  in  to  support  the 
preconceived  notions  of  some  harmonists  ;  but  it  is  an  hypothesis  mainly  founded  on  a  false  and  unscript- 
ural  view  of  inspiration,  and  one  which  must  not  be  adopted  without  the  strongest  justification.  The 
occasional  repetition  of  discourses  is  a  much  more  natural  supposition,  and  one  inherently  probable  from 
the  circumstances  of  the  case. 

2  E.g.,  x.  38 — 42  ;  xiii.  31 — 35  ;  xvii.  II — 19. 

3  The  notes  of  time  and  place  throughout  are  of  the  vaguest  possible  character,  evidently  because  the 
form  of  the  narrative  is  here  determined  by  other  considerations  (see  x.  i,  25,  38  ;  xi.  I,  14  ;  xii.  i,  22  ;  .xiii. 
6,  22;  xiv.  I  ;  xvii.  12,  &c.).  There  seems  to  be  no  ground  whatever  for  supposing  that  St.  Luke  meant  to 
claim  absolute  chronological  accuracy  by  the  expression,  "having  carefully  followed  up,"  in  i.  3;  and  in- 
deed it  seems  clear  from  a  study  of  his  Gospel  that,  though  he  followed  the  historical  sequence  as  far  as  he 
was  able  to  do  so,  he  often  groups  events  and  discourses  by  spiritual  and  subjective  considerations. 

4  See,  among  other  passages,  Mark  x.  17;  Matt.  xix.  16. 


FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE.  395 

narrated  in  Matt.  xx.  17 — 28;  Mark  x.  32 — 45  ;  Luke  xviii.  31 — 34,  belong- 
not  to  this  journey,  but  to  the  last  which  Jesus  ever .  took — the  journey 
from  Ephraim  to  Bethany  and    Jerusalem. 

Assuming  these  conclusions  to  be  justified — and  I  believe  that  they 
will  commend  themselves  as  at  least  probable  to  any  who  really  study 
the  data  of  the  problem — we  naturally  look  to  see  if  there  are  any  inci- 
dents which  can  only  be  referred  to  this  last  residence  of  Jesus  in  Galilee 
after  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  The  sojourn  must  have  been  a  very 
brief  one,  and  seems  to  have  had  no  other  object  than  that  of  prepar- 
ing for  the  Mission  of  the  Seventy,  and  inaugurating  the  final  proclama- 
tion of  Christ's  kingdom  through  all  that  part  of  the  Holy  Land  which 
had  as  yet  been  least  familiar  with  His  word  and  works.  His  instruc- 
tions to  the  Seventy  involved  His  last  farewell  to  Galilee,  and  the  deliv- 
ery of  those  instructions  synchronized,  in  all  probability,  with  His  actual 
departure.  But  there  are  two  other  incidents  recorded  in  the  13th  chap- 
ter, which  probably  belong  to  the  same  brief  sojourn — the  news  of  a 
Galilean  massacre,  and  the  warning  which  He  received  of  Herod's 
designs  against  His  life. 

The  home  of  Jesus  during  these  few  last  days  would  naturally  be  at 
Capernaum,  His  own  city;  and  while  He  was  there  organizing  a  solemn 
departure  to  which  there  would  be  no  return,  there  were  some  who  came 
and  announced  to  Him  a  recent  instance  of  those  numerous  disturbances 
which  marked  the  Procuratorship  of  Pontius  Pilate.  Of  the  particular 
event  to  which  they  alluded  nothing  further  is  known  ;  and  that  a  few 
turbulent  zealots  should  have  been  cut  down  at  Jerusalem  by  the  Roman 
garrison  was  too  common-place  an  event  in  these  troublous  times  to  ex- 
cite more  than  a  transient  notice.  There  were  probably  hundreds  of  such 
outbreaks  of  which  Josephus  has  preserved  no  record.  The  inflammable 
fanaticism  of  the  Jews  at  this  epoch — the  restless  hopes  which  were 
constantly  kindling  them  to  fury  against  the  Roman  Governor,'  and  which 
made  them  the  ready  dupes  of  every  false  Messiah — had  necessitated  the 
construction  of  the  Tower  of  Antonia,  which  flung  its  threatening  shadow 
over  the  Temple  itself.  This  Tower  communicated  with  the  Temple  by 
a  flight  of  steps,  so  that  the  Roman  legionaries  could  rush  down  at  once, 
and    suppress    any  of    the    disturbances  which    then,  as    now,  endangered 

I  Acts  xxi.  34.  Three  thousand  Jews  had  been  massacred  byArchelaus  in  one  single  Paschal  disturb- 
ance thirty  years  before  this  time ;  and  on  one  occasion  Pilate  had  actually  disguised  his  soldiers  as  peas- 
ants, and  sent  them  to  use  their  daggers  freely  among  the  mob. 


.•^g6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  security  of  Jerusalem  at  the  recurrence  of  every  religious  feast.'  And 
of  all  the  Jews,  the  Galileans,  being  the  most  passionately  turbulent  and 
excitable,  were  the  most  likely  to  suffer  in  such  collisions.  Indeed,  the 
main  fact  which  seems  in  this  instance  to  have  struck  the  narrators,  was 
not  so  much  the  actual  massacre  as  the  horrible  incident  that  the  blood 
of  these  murdered  rioters  had  been  actually  mingled  with  the  red  streams 
that  flowed  from  the  victims  they  had  been  offering  in  sacrifice.''  And 
those  who  brought  the  news  to  Christ  did  so,  less  with  any  desire  to 
complain  of  the  sanguinary  boldness  of  the  Roman  Governor,  than  with 
a  curiosity  about  the  supposed  crimes  which  must  have  brought  upon 
these  slaughtered  worshippers  so  hideous  and  tragical  a  fate. 

The  Book  of  Job  stood  in  Hebrew  literature  as  an  eternal  witness 
against  these  sweeping  deductions  of  a  confident  uncharity  ;  but  the  spirit 
of  Eliphaz,  and  Zophar,  and  Bildad  still  survived, ^  and  our  Lord  on 
every  occasion  seized  the  opportunity  of  checking  and  reproving  it.  "  Do 
ye  imagine,"  He  said,  "  that  these  Galileans  were  sinners  above  all  the 
Galileans,  because  they  suffered  such  things?  I  tell  you.  Nay:  but, 
except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish."  And  then  He  reminded 
them  of  another  recent  instance  of  sudden  death,  in  which  "  the  Tower 
in  Siloam  "  had  fallen,  and  crushed  eighteen  people  who  happened  to  be 
under  it  ;*  and  He  told  them  that  so  far  from  these  poor  sufferers  having 
been  specially  criminal,  they  should  all,  if  they  did  not  repent,  be  involved 
in  a  similar  destruction.  No  doubt,  the  main  lesson  which  Christ  desired 
to  teach,  was  that  every  circumstance  of  life,  and  every  violence  of  man, 
was  not  the  result  either  of  idle  accident  or  direct  retribution,  but  formed 
part  of  one  great  scheme  of  Providence  in  which  man  is  permitted  to 
recognize  the  one  prevailing  law — viz.,  that  the  so-called  accidents  of  life 
happen  alike  to  all,  but  that  all  should  in  due  time  receive  according  to 
their  works.  =  But  His  words  had  also  a  more  literal  fulfillment;  and, 
doubtless,  there    may  have  been    some    among  His  hearers  who    lived  to 

1  The  Turkish  Government  have,  with  considerable  astuteness,  fixed  the  annual  pilgrimage  of  Mo- 
hammedans to  the  Tomb  of  the  Prophet  Moses  ^!)  at  the  very  time  when  the  return  of  Easter  inundates 
Jerusalem  with  Christian  pilgrims. 

2  The  same  fact  recurs  more  than  once  in  the  details  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem.  It  is  clear,  however, 
that  some  links  are  missing  to  our  comprehension  of  this  story;  for  one  would  have  expected  that  Gali- 
leans butchered  in  the  Temple  by  a  Roman  Governor  would  have  been  looked  upon  as  martyrs  rather 
than  as  criminals. 

3  Job  iv.  7  ;  viii.  20  ;  xxii.  5. 

4  Ewald  supposes  that  these  men  had  been  engaged  in  constructing  the  aqueduct  which  the  Jews 
regarded  as  impious,  because  Pilate  had  sequestrated  the  corban  money  for  this  secular  purpose. 

5  See  Amos  iii.  6;  ix.  i. 


FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE.  397 

call  them  to  mind  when  the  Jewish  race  was  being  miserably  decimated 
by  the  sword  of  Titus,  and  the  last  defenders  of  Jerusalem,  after  delug- 
ing its  streets  with  blood,  fell  crushed  among  the  flaming  ruins  of  the 
Temple,  which  not  even  their  lives  could   save. 

The  words  were  very  stern  :  but  Christ  did  not  speak  to  them  in 
the  language  of  warning  only  ;  He  held  out  to  them  a  gracious  hope. 
Once,  and  again,  and  yet  again  ;  the  fig-tree  might  be  found  a  barren 
cumberer  of  the  ground,'  but  there  was  One  to  intercede  for  it  still  ;  and 
even  yet — though  now  the  ax  was  uplifted,  nay,  though  it  was  at  its 
backmost  poise — even  yet,  if  at  the  last  the  tree,  so  carefully  tended, 
should  bring  forth  fruit,  that  ax  should  be  stayed,  and  its  threatened 
stroke    should    not  rush  through  the  parted  air. 

Short  as  His  stay  at  His  old  home  was  meant  to  be,  His  enemies 
would  gladly  have  shortened  it  still  further.  They  were  afraid  of,  they 
were  weary  of,  the  Lord  of  Life.  Yet  they  did  not  dare  openly  to  con- 
fess their  sentiments.  The  Pharisees  came  to  Him  in  sham  solicitude  for 
His  safety,  and  said,  "Get  thee  out,  and  depart  hence;  for  Herod  is 
waiting  to  kill  thee."' 

Had  Jesus  yielded  to  fear — had  He  hastened  His  departure  in  con- 
sequence of  a  danger,  which  even  if  it  had  any  existence,  except  in  their 
own  imaginations,  had  at  any  rate  no  immediate  urgency — doubtless,  they 
would  have  enjoyed  a  secret  triumph  at  His  expense.  But  His  answer 
was  supremely  calm:  "Go,"  He  said,  "and  tell  this  fox,  ^  Behold,  I  am 
casting  out  devils,  and  working  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  on  the 
third  day  my  work  is  done."  And  then  He  adds,  with  the  perfect  con- 
fidence of  security  mingled  with  the  bitter  irony  of  sorrow,  "  But  I  must 
go  on  my  course  to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  the  day  following ;  for  it 
cannot  be  that  a  prophet  perish  out  of  Jerusalem."  And,  perhaps,  at  this 
sorrowful  crisis  His  oppressed  feelings  may  have  found  vent  in  some 
pathetic  cry  over  the  fallen  sinful  city,  so  red  with  the  blood  of  her 
murdered  messengers,  like  that  which  He  also  uttered  when  He  wept  over 
it  on  the  summit  of  Olivet. •• 

1  Luke  xiii.  7.     There  seems  to  be  a  natural  reference  to  the  three  years  of  our  Lord's  own  ministry. 

2  The  assertion  was  probably  quite  untrue.     It  is  inconsistent  with  Luke  xxiii.  S. 

3  Luke  xiii.  32,  rr;  aXdivcKt  TavTt},  "this  fox,"  as  though  Herod  were  with  them  in  person,  as  he  was 
like  them  in  cunning. 

4  Marvelously  has  that  woe  been  fulfilled.  Every  Jewish  pilgrim  who  enters  Jerusalem  to  this  day 
has  a  rent  made  in  his  dress,  and  says,  "  Zion  is  turned  into  a  desert,  it  lies  in  ruins!"  Sapir,  tht  Jewish 
poet  of  Wilna,  addressed  Dr.  Frankl  thus: — "  Here  all  is  dust.  After  the  destruction  of  the  city,  the  whole 
earth  blossoms  from  its  ruins;  but  here  there  is  no  verdure,  no  blossom,  only  a  bitter  fruit — sorrow.     Look 


398  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

The  little  plot  of  these  Pharisees  had  entirely  failed.  Whether  Herod 
had  really  entertained  any  vague  intention  of  seeing  Jesus  and  putting 
Him  to  death  as  he  had  put  to  death  His  kinsman  John,  or  whether 
the  whole  rumor  was  a  pure  invention,  Jesus  regarded  it  with  consummate 
indifference.  Whatever  Herod  might  be  designing,  His  own  intention 
was  to  finish  His  brief  stay  in  Galilee  in  His  own  due  time,  and  not 
before.  A  day  or  two  yet  remained  to  Him  in  which  He  would  continue 
to  perform  His  works  of  mercy  on  all  who  sought  Him;  after  that  brief 
interval  the  time  would  have  come  when  He  should  be  received  up," 
and  He  would  turn  His  back  for  the  last  time  on  the  home  of  His 
youth,  and  "set  His  face  steadfastly  to  go  to  Jerusalem."  Till  then — so 
they  must  tell  their  crafty  patron,  whom  they  themselves  resembled— He 
was  under  an  inviolable  protection,  into  which  neither  their  malice  nor 
his  cruelty  could  intrude. 

And  He  deservedly  bestowed  on  Herod  Antipas  the  sole  word  of 
pure  unmitigated  contempt  which  is  ever  recorded  to  have  passed  His 
lips.  Words  of  burning  anger  He  sometimes  spoke — words  of  scathing 
indignation — words  of  searching  irony — words  of  playful  humor  ;  but  some 
are  startled  to  find  Him  using  words  of  sheer  contempt.  Yet  why  not? 
there  can  be  no  noble  soul  which  is  wholly  destitute  of  scorn.  The 
"scorn  of  scorn"  must  exist  side  by  side  with  the  "love  of  love."  Like 
ano-er,  like  the  power  of  moral  indignation,  scorn  has  its  due  place  as  a 
rio-hteous  function  in  the  economy  of  human  emotions,  and  as  long  as 
there  are  things  of  which  we  rightly  judge  as  contemptible,  so  long  must 
contempt  remain.  And  if  ever  there  was  a  man  who  richly  deserved 
contempt,  it  was  the  paltry,  perjured  princeling — false  to  his  religion,  false 
to  his  nation,  false  to  his  friends,  false  to  his  brethren,  false  to  his  wife — 
to  whom  Jesus  gave  the  name  of  "that  fox."  The  inhuman  vices  which 
the  Cssars  displayed  on  the  vast  theater  of  their  absolutism — the  lust, 
the  cruelty,  the  autocratic  insolence,  the  ruinous  extravagance — all  these 
were  seen  in  pale  reflex  in  these  little  Neros  and  Caligulas  of  the 
provinces — these  local  tyrants,  half  Idumaean,  half  Samaritan,  who  aped 
the  worst  degradations  of  the  Imperialism  to  which  they  owed  their  very 
existence.  Judea  might  well  groan  under  the  odious  and  petty  despotism 
of  these  hybrid  Herodians — jackals  who    fawned    about    the    feet    of    the 

for  no  joy  here,  either  from  men  or  from  mountains."     A  wealthy  and   pious  Jew  came  to  settle  at  Jerusa- 
lem: after  two  years'  stay  he  left  it  with  the  words,  "  Let  him  that  wishes  to  have  neither  '  the  pleasures  of 
this  life  '  nor  '  those  of  the  life  to  come  '  live  at  Jerusalem." 
I  Luke  ix.  51. 


FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE.  399 

Caesarean  lions.'  Respect  for  "the  powers  that  be"  can  hardly,  as  has 
well  been  said,  involve  respect  for  all  the  impotences  and  imbecilities. 

Whether  "that  fox"  ever  heard  of  the  manner  in  which  our  Lord 
had  characterized  him  and  his  dominion  we  do  not  know ;  in  lifetime 
they  never  met,  until,  on  the  morning  of  the  crucifixion,  Antipas  vented 
upon  Jesus  his  empty  insults.  But  now  Jesus  calmly  concluded  His  last 
task  in  Galilee.  He  summoned  His  followers  together,  and  out  of  them 
chose  seventy  to  prepare  His  way.  Their  number  was  probably  symbolic,'' 
and  the  mission  of  so  large  a  number  to  go  before  Him  two  and  two, 
and  prepare  for  His  arrival  in  every  place  which  He  intended  to  visit, 
implies  for  this  last  jour/!ey  of  proclamation  an  immense  publicity.  The 
instructions  which  He  gave  them  closely  resemble  those  which  He  had 
issued  to  the  Twelve;  and,  indeed,  differ  from  them  only  in  being  more 
brief,  because  they  refer  to  a  more  transitory  office  ;  in  omittino-  the  now 
needless  restriction  about  not  visiting  the  Gentiles  and  Samaritans  ;  and 
perhaps  in  bestowing  upon  them  less  ample  miraculous  power.^  They 
also  breathe  a  sadder  tone,  inspired  by  the  experience  of  incessant 
rejection. 

And  now  the  time  has  come  for  Him  to  set  forth,  and  it  must  be 
in  sorrow.  He  left,  indeed,  some  faithful  hearts  behind  Him  ;  but  how 
few!  Galilee  had  rejected  Him,  as  Judea  had  rejected  Him.  On  one 
side  of  the  lake  which  He  loved,  a  whole  populace  in  unanimous  depu- 
tation had  besought  Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts;  on  the  other, 
they  had  vainly  tried  to  vex  His  last  days  among  them  by  a  miserable 
conspiracy  to  frighten  Him  into  flight.  At  Nazareth,  the  sweet  mountain 
village  of  His  childish  days — at  Nazareth,  with  all  its  happy  memories 
of  His  boyhood  and  His  mother's  home — they  had  treated  Him  with, 
such  violence  and  outrage,  that  He  could  not  visit  it  again.  And  even 
at  Chorazin,  and  Capernaum,  and    Bethsaida — on    those    Eden-shores    of 

1  What  has  been  said  of  Agrippa  is  equally  true  of  Antipas.  viz.,  that  "he  had  been  the  meanest 
thing  the  world  had  ever  seen— a  courtier  of  the  early  empire.  He  had  been  corrupted  by  the  influence  of 
the  Roman  court,  and  had  flattered  the  worse  vices  of  the  worst  men  in  the  worst  age  of  the  world's 
history." 

2  Some  MSS.  alter  it  into  "seventy-two,"  to  connect  their  number  with  the  number  of  the  Sanhedrin, 
and  the  elders  appointed  by  Moses  [about  which,  however,  there  is  the  same  variation]  (Exod.  xxiv.  i). 
Others,  with  no  authority  but  fancy,  connect  it  with  the  ideal  seventy  nations  of  the  world.  These  seventy 
nations  are  supposed  to  have  been  separated  at  Babel. 

3  Compare  Matt.  x.  5—42  with  Luke  x.  i— 12.  We  must  not  press  the  fact  that  "  lambs"  is  in  Luke  x. 
3  substituted  for  "sheep"  in  Matt.  x.  16.  The  prohibition  to  greet  anyone  by  the  way  is  proverbial  of  any 
hasty  mission  (2  Kings  iv.  29),  and  arose  from  the  fact  that  Oriental  greetings  are  much  longer  and  more 
elaborate  than  ours. 


400  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  silver  lake — in  the  green  delicious  plain,  whose  every  field  He  had 
traversed  with  His  apostles,  performing  deeds  of  mercy,  and  uttering 
words  of  love — even  there  they  loved  the  whited  sepulchers  of  a  Pharisaic 
sanctity,  and  the  shallow  traditions  of  a  Levitical  ceremonial,  better  than 
the  light  and  the  life  which  had  been  offered  them  by  the  Son  of  God. 
They  were  feeding  on  ashes  ;  a  deceived  heart  had  turned  them  aside. 
On  many  a  great  city  of  antiquity,  on  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  on  Tyre 
and  Sidon,  on  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  had  fallen  the  wrath  of  God  ;  yet 
even  Nineveh  and  Babylon  would  have  humbled  their  gorgeous  idolatries, 
even  Tyre  and  Sidon  have  turned  from  their  greedy  vanities,  yea,  even 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  would  have  repented  froln  their  filthy  lusts,  had 
they  seen  the  mighty  works  which  had  been  done  in  these  little  cities 
and  villages  of  the  Galilean  sea.  And,  therefore,  "Woe  unto  thee, 
Chorazin  !  woe  unto  thee,  Bethsaida!"  and  unto  thee,  Capernaum,  "His 
own  city,"  a  yet  deeper  woe  ! 

With  such  thoughts  in  His  heart,  and  such  words  on  His  lips.  He 
started  forth  from  the  scene  of  His  rejected  ministry  ;  and  on  all  this 
land,  and  most  of  all  on  that  region  of  it,  the  woe  has  fallen.  Ex- 
quisite still  in  its  loveliness,  it  is  now  desolate  and  dangerous.  The 
birds  still  sing  in  countless  myriads  ;  the  water-fowl  still  play  on  the 
crystal  mere;  the  brooks  flow  into  it  from  the  neighboring  hill,  "filling 
their  bosoms  with  pearl,  and  scattering  their  path  with  emeralds;"  the 
aromatic  herbs  are  still  fragrant  when  the  foot  crushes  them,  and  the 
tall  oleanders  fill  the  air  with  their  delicate  perfume  as  of  old  ;  but  the 
vineyards  and  fruit-gardens  have  disappeared  ;  the  fleets  and  fishing-boats 
cease  to  traverse  the  lake  ;  the  hum  of  men  is  silent  ;  the  stream  of 
prosperous  commerce  has  ceased  to  flow.  The  very  names  and  sites  of 
the  towns  and  cities  are  forgotten  ;  and  where  they  once  shone  bright 
and  populous,  flinging  their  shadows  across  the  sunlit  waters,  there  are 
now  gray  mounds  where  even  the  ruins  are  too  ruinous  to  be  distin- 
guishable. One  solitary  palm-tree  by  one  squalid  street  of  huts,  degraded 
and  frightful  beyond  any,  even  in  Palestine,  still  marks  the  site,  and 
recalls  the  name  of  the  one  little  town  where  lived  that  sinful  penitent 
woman  who  once  washed  Christ's  feet  with  her  tears  and  wiped  them 
with  the  hairs  of  her  head.' 

And  the  very  generation  which  rejected    Him   was  doomed  to  recall 

I  The  "  Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin,"  and  the  "  And  thou,  Capernaum,"  receive  a  very  striking  illustra- 
tion from  the  photographs  of  the  tvpo  sites  by  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund. 


FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE.  401 

in  bitter  and  fruitless  agony  these  peaceful,  happy  days  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  Thirty  years  had  barely  elapsed  when  the  storm  of  Roman 
invasion  burst  furiously  over  that  smiling  land.  He  who  will,  may  read 
in  the  Jewish  War  of  Josephus  the  hideous  details  of  the  slaughter 
which  decimated  the  cities  of  Galilee,  and  wrung  from  the  historian  the 
repeated  confession  that  "  it  was  certainly  God  who  brought  the  Romans 
to  punish  the  Galileans,"  and  exposed  the  people  of  city  after  city  "to 
be  destroyed  by  their  bloody  enemies."  Immediately  after  the  celebrated 
passage  in  which  he  describes  the  lake  and  plain  of  Gennesareth  as  "the 
ambition  of  nature,"  follows  a  description  of  that  terrible  sea-fight  on 
these  bright  waters,  in  which  the  number  of  the  slain,  including  those 
killed  in  the  city,  was  six  thousand  five  hundred.  Hundreds  were  stabbed 
by  the  Romans  or  run  through  with  poles ;  others  tried  to  save  their 
lives  by  diving,  but  if  once  they  raised  their  heads  were  slain  by  darts  ; 
or  if  they  swam  to  the  Roman  vessels  had  their  heads  or  hands  lopped 
off ;  while  others  were  chased  to  the  land  and  there  massacred.  "  One 
might  then,"  the  historian  continues,  "see  the  lake  all  bloody,  and  full 
of  dead  bodies,  for  not  one  of  them  escaped.  And  a  terrible  stink,  ajtd 
a  very  sad  sight  tliere  was,  071  the  following  days  over  that  cotcntry  ;  for, 
as  for  the  shores,  they  were  full  of  shipwrecks  and  of  dead  bodies  all 
swelled;  and  as  the  dead  bodies  were  inflamed  by  the  sun,  and  putrefied, 
they  corrupted  the  air,  insomuch  that  the  misery  was  not  only  an  object  of 
commiseration  to  the  Jews,  bid  even  to  those  that  hated  them,  and  had 
been  the  authors  of  that  misery."  Of  those  that  died  amid  this  butchery  ; 
of  those  whom  Vespasian  immediately  afterwards  abandoned  to  brutal 
and  treacherous  massacre  between  Taricheae  and  Tiberias ;  of  those 
twelve  hundred  "  old  and  useless "  whom  he  afterwards  caused  to  be 
slain  in  the  stadium  ;  of  the  six  thousand  whom  he  sent  to  aid  Nero  in 
his  attempt  to  dig  through  the  Isthmus  of  Athos  ;  of  the  thirty  thousand 
four  hundred  whom  he  sold  as  slaves — may  there  not  have  been  many 
who  in  their  agony  and  exile,  in  their  hour  of  death  and  day  of  judg- 
ment, recalled  Him  whom  they  had  repudiated,  and  remembered  that 
the  sequel  of  all  those  gracious  words  which  had  proceeded  out  of  His 
lips  had  been  the  "woe"  which  their  obduracy  called  forth! 

There  could  not  but  be  sorrow  in  such  a  parting  from  such  a  scene. 
And  yet  the  divine  spirit  of  Jesus  could  not  long  be  a  prey  to  consuming 
sadness.  Out  of  the  tenebrous  influences  cast  about  it  from  the  inces- 
sant opposition  of  unbelief  and  sin,  it  was  ever  struggling  into  the  purity 

26 


402  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  peace  of  heaven,  from  the  things  seen  and  temporal  to  the  things 
unseen  and  eternal,  from  the  shadows  of  human  degradation  into  the 
sunlight  of  God's  peace.  "  In  that  hour  Jesus  rejoiced  in  spirit,"  and 
what  a  joy  !  what  a  boundless,  absorbing  exultation,"  as  He  thought  no 
longer  of  judgment  but  of  compassion ;  as  He  turned  not  with  faint 
trust  but  perfect  knowledge  to  "the  larger  hope;"  as  He  remembered 
how  tJiat  which  was  hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent  had  been  revealed 
unto  babes  ;  as  He  dwelt  upon  the  thought  that  He  was  sent  not  to  the 
rich  and  learned  few,  but  to  the  ignorant  and  suffering  many  ;  as  He 
told  His  disciples  that  into  His,  yea,  into  His  own  loving  hands,  had 
His  Father  committed  all  power,  and  that  in  Him  they  would  see  and 
know  the  spirit  of  His  Father,  and  thereby  might  see  and  know  that 
revelation  for  which  many  kings  and  prophets  had  sighed  in  vain.  And 
then,  that  even  in  the  hour  of  denunciation  not  one  of  them  might 
doubt  His  own  or  His  Father's  love.  He  uttered  in  that  same  hour  of 
rapt  and  exalted  ecstasy,  those  tenderest  words  ever  uttered  in  human 
language  as  God's  message  and  invitation  to  His  children  in  the  suffer- 
ing family  of  man,  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of 
me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart  ;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls." 

So,  over  a  temporary  sorrow  there  triumphed  an  infinite  and  eternal 
joy.  There  are  some  who  have  dwelt  too  exclusively  on  Jesus  as  the 
Man  of  Sorrows;  have  thought  of  His  life  as  of  one  unmitigated  suffer- 
ing, one  almost  unbroken  gloom.  But  in  the  Bible — though  there  alone — 
we  find  the  perfect  compatibility,  nay,  the  close  union  of  joy  with  sor- 
row ;  and  myriads  of  Christians  who  have  been  "troubled  on  every  side, 
yet  not  distressed ;  perplexed,  but  not  in  despair ;  persecuted,  but  not 
forsaken  ;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed,"  can  understand  how  the  Man 
of  Sorrows,  even  in  the  days  of  His  manhood,  may  have  lived  a  life 
happier,  in  the  true  sense  of  happiness — happier,  because  purer,  more 
sinless,  more  faithful,  more  absorbed  in  the  joy  of  obedience  to  His 
Heavenly  Father— than  has  been  ever  granted  to  the  sons  of  men.     The 

I  "  He  exulted."  It  seems  clear  that  Luke  x.  21  belongs  closely  to  the  address  which  closes  in  verse 
16,  though  St.  Luke  pauses  to  record  in  the  intermediate  verses  the  return  of  the  Seventy.  This  must  be 
evident  to  any  one  who  compares  the  passage  with  Matt.  xi.  20 — 27  ;  and  unless  we  adopt  the  unlikely 
hypothesis  that  both  series  of  words  were  uttered  twice  in  different  connections,  it  is  clear  that  St.  Luke's 
context  here  suits  them  best ;  and,  moreover,  this  mark  of  time  here  given  by  St.  Luke  is  slightly  the  more 
definite  of  the  two. 


FAREWELL  TO  GALILEE. 


403 

forests 


deep    pure    stream    flows    on  its  way  rejoicing,  even    though    the 
overshadow  it,  and  no  transient  sunshine  flickers  on  its  waves. 

And  if,  indeed,  true  joy — the  highest  joy — be  "severe,  and  chaste, 
and  soHtary,  and  incompatible,"  then  how  constant,  how  inexpressible, 
what  a  joy  of  God,  must  have  been  the  joy  of  the  Man  Christ  Jesus, 
who  came  to  give  to  all  who  love  Him,  henceforth  and  for  ever,  a  joy 
which  no  man  taketh  from  them — a  joy  which  the  world  can  neither  give 
nor  take  away. 


CHAPTER    XLIII. 


INCIDENTS     OF     THE     JOURNEY.      - 
"  It  is  not  the  work  of  religion  to  compel  to  religion." — Tertulliait. 

E  ARE  not  told  the  exact  route  taken  by  Jesus 
as  He  left  Gennesareth ;  but  as  He  probably 
avoided  Nazareth,  with  its  deeply  'happy  and 
deeply  painful  memories,  He  may  have  crossed 
the  bridge  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the 
Lake,  and  so  got  round  into  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon  either  by  the  valley  of  Bethshean,  or 
over  Mount  Tabor  and  round  Little  Hermon, 
passing  Endor  and  Nain  and  Shunem  on  His 
way. 

Crossing  the  plain,  and  passing  Taanach  and 
Megiddo,  He  would  reach  the  range  of  hills  which  form 
the  northern  limit  of  Samaria  ;  and  at  the  foot  of  their 
first  ascent  lies  the  little  town  of  En-gannim,  or  the 
"  Fountain  of  Gardens."'  This  would  be  the  first  Samaritan 
village  at  which  He  would  arrive,  and  hither,  apparently,  He  had  sent 
two  messengers  "to  make  ready  for  Him."  Although  the  incident  is 
mentioned  by  St.  Luke  before  the  Mission  of  the  Seventy,  yet  that  is 
probably  due  to  his  subjective  choice  of  order,  and  we  may  suppose  that 
there  were  two  of  the  seventy  who  were  dispatched  to  prepare  the  way 
for  Him  spiritually  as  well  as  in  the  more  ordinary  sense  ;  unless,  indeed, 
we  adopt  the  conjecture  that  the  messengers  may  have  been  James  and 
John,  who  would  thus  be  likely  to  feel  with  special  vividness  the  insult 
of  His  rejection.  At  any  rate  the  inhabitants — who  to  this  day  are  not 
remarkable  for  their  civility  to  strangers' — absolutely  declined  to  receive 
or    admit    Him.       Previously    indeed,    when     He    was    passing    through 

1  Luke  ix.  51 — 56.     En-gannim  is  still  a  very  pleasant  spot,  deserving  its  poetic  name,  vrhich  is  now 
corrupted  into  Jenin. 

2  "They  are,"  says  Dr.  Thomson,  "fanatical,  rude,  and  rebellious." 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  405 

Samaria  on  His  journey  northwards,  He  had  found  Samaritans  not  only 
wilHng  to  receive,  but  anxious  to  detain  His  presence  among  them,  and 
eager  to  listen  to  His  words.  But  now  in  two  respects  the  circumstances 
were  different  ;  for  now  He  was  professedly  traveling  to  the  city  which 
they  hated  and  the  Temple  which  they  despised,  and  now  He  was 
attended,  not  by  a  few  Apostles,  but  by  a  great  multitude,  who  were\ 
accompanying  Him  as  their  acknowledged  Prophet  and  Messiah.  Had 
Gerizim  and  not  Jerusalem  been  the  goal  of  His  journey,  all  might  have 
been  different  ;  but  now  His  destination  and  His  associates  inflamed 
their  national  animosity  too  much  to  admit  of  their  supplying  to  the 
weary  pilgrims  the  ordinary  civilities  of  life.  And  if  the  feelings  of  this 
little  frontier  village  of  En-gannim  were  so  unmistakably  hostile,  it 
became  clear  that  any  attempt  to  journey  through  the  whole  breadth  of 
Samaria,  and  even  to  pass  under  the  shadow  of  their  rival  sanctuary, 
would  be  a  dangerous  if  not  a  hopeless  task. '  Jesus  therefore  altered 
the  course  of  His  journey,  and  turned  once  more  towards  the  Jordan 
valley.  Rejected  by  Galilee,  refused  by  Samaria,  without  a  word  He 
bent   His  steps  towards  Persea. 

But  the  deep  discouragement  of  this  refusal  to  receive  Him  was 
mingled  in  the  minds  of  James  and  John  with  hot  indignation.  There 
is  nothing  so  trying,  so  absolutely  exasperating,  as  a  failure  to  find  food 
and  shelter,  and  common  civility,  after  the  fatigue  of  travel,  and  espe- 
cially for  a  large  multitude  to  begin  a  fresh  journey  when  they  expected 
rest.  Full,  therefore,  of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  which  now  at  last  they 
thought  was  on  the  eve  of  being  mightily  proclaimed,  the  two  brothers 
wanted  to  usher  it  in  with  a  blaze  of  Sinaitic  vengeance,  and  so  to 
astonish  and  restore  the  flagging  spirits  of  followers  who  would  naturally 
be  discouraged  by  so  immediate  and  decided  a  repulse.  "  Lord,  wilt 
Thou  that  we  command  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven,  and  consume 
them,  even  as  Elias  did?"  "What  wonder,"  says  St.  Ambrose,  "that 
the  Sons  of  Thunder  wished  to  flash  lightning?"  And  this  their  fiery 
impetuosity  seemed  to  find  its  justification  not  only  in  the  precedent  of 
Elijah's  conduct,''  but  in  the  fact  that  it  had  been    displayed  in  this  very 

1  The  exacerbation  between  Jews  and  Samaritans  was  always  at  its  worst  during  the  anniversaries  of 
the  national  feasts  ;  and  it  often  broke  out  into  acts  of  open  hostility.  In  consequence  of  this,  the  caravans 
of  Galilean  pilgrims  seem  in  many  instances  [though  by  no  means  always]  to  have  chosen  the  route  on 
the  east  of  Jordan.  The  Jews  accused  the  Samaritans  of  willfully  molesting  their  harmless  travelers,  even 
of  the  horrible  crimes  of  having  lit  false  fire-signals  to  show  the  time  of  new  moon,  and  of  having  polluted 
their  Temple  by  scattering  in  it  the  bones  of  the  dead. 

2  2  Kings  i.  10 — 12. 


4o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

country  of  Samaria.  Was  it  more  necessary  in  personal  defense  of  a 
single  prophet  than  to  vindicate  the  honor  of  the  Messiah  and  His 
attendants  ?  But  Jesus  turned  and  rebuked  them.  God's  heaven  has 
other  uses  than  for  thunder.  "They  did  not  know,"  He  told  them, 
"vi^hat  spirit  they  were  of."'  They  had  not  realized  the  difference  which 
separated  Sinai  and  Carmel  from  Calvary  and  Hermon.  He  had  come 
to  save,  not  to  destroy;  and  if  any  heard  His  words  and  believed  not, 
He  judged  them  not."  And  so,  without  a  word  of  anger,  He  went  to  a 
different  village;'  and  doubtless  St.  John,  who  by  that  time  did  know  of 
what  spirit  he  was,  remembered  these  words  of  Christ  when  he  went 
with  Peter  into  Samaria  to  confirm  the  recent  converts,  and  to  bestow 
upon  them  the  gift  of  the   Holy  Ghost. 

Perhaps  it  may  have  been  on  this  occasion — for  certainly  no  occasion 
would  have  been  more  suitable  than  that  furnished  by  this  early  and  rude 
repulse — that  Jesus,  turning  to  the  great  multitudes  that  accompanied 
Him,*  delivered  to  them  that  memorable  discourse  in  which  He  warned 
them  that  all  who  would  be  His  disciples  must  come  to  Him,  not  expect- 
ing earthly  love  or  acceptance,  but  expecting  alienation  and  opposition, 
and  coiintiiig  the  cost.  They  must  abandon,  if  need  be,  every  earthly  tie ; 
they  must  sit  absolutely  loose  to  the  interests  of  the  world  ;  ^  they  must 
take  up  the  cross  and  follow  Him.  Strange  language,  of  which  it  was 
only  afterwards  that  they  learnt  the  full  significance  !  For  a  man  to 
begin  a  tower  which  he  could  not  finish — for  a  king  to  enter  on  a  war 
in  which  nothing  was  possible  save  disaster  and  defeat — involved  disgrace 
and  indicated  folly;  better  not  to  follow  Him  at  all,  unless  they  followed 
Him  prepared  to  forsake  all  that  they  had  on  earth  ;  prepared  to  sacri- 
fice the    interests  of  time,  and  to  live  solely  for  those  of  eternity.     One 

1  The  words  are  omitted  in  many  MSB.  Alford,  however,  supposes  that  they  "  have  been  unsparingly 
tampered  with  "  because  they  stood  in  the  way  of  ecclesiastical  censures. 

2  John  iii.  17  ;  xii.  47. 

3  The  "different"  (Luke  ix.  56)  probably  implies  that  it  was  not  a  Samaritan  village. 

4  Luke  xiv.  25 — 33.  We  must  ask  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  throughout  this  and  the  following  chap- 
ter that  the  exact  sequence  of  events  is  not  here  given  by  the  Evangelists,  and  therefore  that  the  certain 
order  in  which  they  occurred  is  not  ascertainable.  Professor  Westcott  arranges  the  contents  of  the  section 
(omitting  the  minor  divisions)  as  follows: — The  Universal  Church  ;  The  Rejection  of  the  Jews  foreshown  ; 
Preparation  (ix.  43— xi.  13);  Lessons  of  warning  (xi.  14— xiii.  9);  Lessons  of  progress  (xiii.  IC — xiv.  24); 
Lessons  of  discipleship  (xiv.  25— xvii.  10)  ;  The  coming  end  (xvii.  n— xviii.  30). 

5  The  "  hate  "  of  Luke  xiv.  26  is  adopted  in  strict  accordance  with  our  Lord's  habit  of  stating  the  great 
truths  which  He  uttered  in  the  extremes!  form  of  what  to  His  hearers  must  even  sound  like  paradox,  in 
order  that  their  inmost  essential  truth— their  truth  without  any  subterfuge  or  qualification — might  be  recog- 
nized, and  so  fixed  eternally  in  their  memory.  It  was  necessary  that  they  should  be  uttered  in  such  a  way  as 
to  seize,  and  dominate  over,  the  imaginations  of  mankind  for  ever. 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  407 

who  believed  not,  would  indeed  suffer  loss  and  harm,  yet  his  lot  was  less 
pitiable  than  that  of  him  who  became  a  disciple  only  to  be  a  backslider — 
who,  facing  both  ways,  cast  like  Lot's  wife  a  longing  glance  on  all  that 
he  ought  to  flee — who  made  the  attempt,  at  once  impotent  and  disas 
trous,  to  serve  both  God  and   Mammon. 

As  both  Galilee  and  Samaria  were  now  closed  to  Him,  He  could 
only  journey  on  His  way  to  Peraea,  down  the  valley  of  Bethshean,  be- 
tween the  borders  of  both  provinces.  There  a  very  touching  incident 
occurred.'  On  the  outskirts  of  one  of  the  villages  a  dull,  harsh,  plaintive 
cry  smote  His  ears,  and  looking  up  He  saw  "ten  men  who  were  lepers," 
united  in  a  community  of  deadly  misery.  They  were  afar  off,  for  they 
dared  not  approach,  since  their  approach  was  pollution,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  warn  away  all  who  would  have  come  near  them  by  the  heart- 
rending cry,  "Tajnif  tame/" — "Unclean!  unclean!"  There  was  some- 
thing in  that  living  death  of  leprosy — recalling  as  it  did  the  most  fright- 
ful images  of  suffering  and  degradation — corrupting  as  it  did  the  very 
fountains  of  the  life-blood  of  man,  distorting  his  countenance,  rendering 
loathsome  his  touch,  slowly  encrusting  and  infecting  him  with  a  plague- 
spot  of  disease  far  more  horrible  than  death  itself — which  always  seems 
to  have  thrilled  the  Lord's  heart  with  a  keen  and  instantaneous  compas- 
sion. And  never  more  so  than  at  this  moment.  Scarcely  had  He  heard 
their  piteous  cry  of  "Jesus,  Master,  have  mercy  on  us,"  than  instantly, 
without  sufficient  pause  even  to  approach  them  more  nearly.  He  called 
aloud  to  them,  "  Go,  show  yourselves  unto  the  priests."  They  knew  the 
significance  of  that  command  :  they  knew  that  it  bade  them  hurry  off  to 
claim  from  the  priest  the  recognition  of  their  cure,  the  certificate  of  their 
restitution  to  every  rite  and  privilege  of  human  life.''  Already,  at  the 
sound  of  that  potent  voice,  they  felt  a  stream  of  wholesome  life,  of  re- 
covered energy,  of  purer  blood,  pulsing  through  their  veins ;  and  as  they 
went  they  were  cleansed. 

He  who  has  not  seen  the  hideous,  degraded  spectacle  of  the  lepers 
clamorously  revealing  their  mutilations,  and  almost  demanding  alms,  by  the 
roadside  of  some  Eastern  city,  can  hardly  conceive  how  transcendent  and 
immeasurable  was  the  boon  which  they  had  thus  received  at  the  hands 
of  Jesus.  One  would  have  thought  that  they  would  have  suffered  no 
obstacle  to  hinder  the  passionate  gratitude  which    should    have  prompted 

1  Luke  xvii.  11 — 19. 

2  Lev.  xiii.  2  ;  xiv.  2. 


4o8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

them  to  hasten  back  at  once — to  struggle,  if  need  be,  even  through  fire 
and  water,  if  thereby  they  could  fling  themselves  with  tears  of  heartfelt 
acknowledgment  at  their  Saviour's  feet,  to  thank  Him  for  a  gift  of  some- 
thing more  precious  than  life  itself.  What  absorbing  selfishness,  what 
Jewish  infatuation,  what  sacerdotal  interference,  what  new  and  worse 
leprosy  of  shameful  thanklessness  and  superstitious  ignorance,  prevented 
it  ?  We  do  not  know.  We  only  know  that  of  ten  who  were  healed  but 
one  returned,  and  he  was  a  Samaritan.  On  the  frontiers  of  the  two 
countries  had  been  gathered,  like  froth  at  the  margin  of  wave  and  sand, 
the  misery  of  both;"  but  while  the  nine  Jews  were  infamously  thankless, 
the  one  Samaritan  "  turned  back,  and  with  a  loud  voice  glorified  God,, 
and  fell  down  on  his  face  at  His  feet,  giving  Him  thanks."  The  heart 
of  Jesus,  familiar  as  He  was  with  all  ingratitude,  was  yet  moved  by  an 
instance  of  it  so  flagrant,  so  all  but  unanimous,  and  so  abnormal.  "Were 
not  the  ten  cleansed?"  He  asked  in  sorrowful  surprise;  "but  the  nine — 
where  are  they?'  There  are  not  found  that  returned  to  give  glory 
to  God  save  this  alien."  "It  is,"  says  Lange,  "as  if  all  these  benefits 
were  falling  into  a  deep  silent  grave."  The  voice  of  their  misery  had 
awaked  the  instant  echo  of  His  mercy;  but  the  miraculous  utterance  of 
His  mercy,  though  it  thrilled  through  their  whole  physical  being,  woke 
no  echo  of  gratitude  in  their  earthly  and  still  leprous  hearts. 

But,  nevertheless,  this  alien  shall  not  have  returned  in  vain,  nor  shall 
the  rare  virtue — alas,  hoio  rare  a  virtue  !^ — of  his  gratitude  go  unrewarded. 
Not  his  body  alone,  but  the  soul — whose  value  was  so  infinitely  more 
precious,  just  as  its  diseases  are  so  infinitely  more  profound — should  be 
healed  by  his  Saviour's  word. 

"Arise  and  go,"  said  Jesus;    thy  faith  hath  saved  thee." 

1  So  it  is  only  in  the  "abodes  of  the  unfortunate,"  or  lepers' quarter  in  Jerusalem,  that  Jews  and 
Mohammedans  will  live  together. 

2  Luke  xvii.  17. 

3  Wordsworth's  lines  have  been  often  quoted — 

"  I've  heard  of  hearts  unkind,  kind  deeds 
With  coldness  still  returning, 
Alas  !  the  gratitude  of  men 

Hath  oftener  left  me  mourning." 


THE   GOOD    SAMARITAN. T-llke  X.  3^. 


CHAPTER     XLIV. 


T  E  A  C  H  I  N  C;  S    OK    THE    JOURNEY. 


"  And  make  a  fence  for  the  Lav 


-Pirke  Abhdth,  i.  I. 


VEN  during  this  last  journey  our  Lord  did  not 
escape  the  taunts,  the  opposition,  the  deprecia- 
ting remarks — in  one  word,  the  Pharisaism — of 
tlie  Pharisees  and  those  who  resembled  them. 
The  circumstances  which  irritated  them  against 
Him  were  exactly  the  same  as  they  had  been 
throughout  His  whole  career — exactly  those  in 
which  His  example  was  most  lofty,  and  His 
teaching  most  beneficial — namely,  the  perform- 
ance on  the  Sabbath  of  works  of  mercy,  and  the 
association  with  publicans  and  sinners. 

One  of  these  sabbatical  disputes  occurred 
in  a  synagogue.'  Jesus,  as  we  have  already 
remarked,  whether  because  of  the  lesser  excom- 
munication or  for  any  other  reason,  seems,  during  this  latter  period  of 
His  ministry,  to  have  entered  the  synagogues  but  rarely.  The  exclusion, 
however,  from  one  synagogue  or  more  did  not  include  a  prohibition  to 
enter  any  synagogue  ;  and  the  subsequent  conduct  of  this  rosk  hakkendsetk 
seems  to  show  that  he  had  a  certain  awe  of  Jesus,  mingled  with  his 
jealousy  and  suspicion.  On  this  day  there  sat  among  the  worshippers  a 
poor  woman  who,  for  eighteen  long  years,  had  been  bent  double  by  "  a 
spirit  of  infirmity,"  and  could  not  lift  herself  up.  The  compassionate 
heart  of  Jesus  could  not  brook  the  mute  appeal  of  her  presence.  He 
called  her  to  Him,  and  saying  to  her,  "Woman,  thou  art  loosed  from 
thine  infirmity,""  laid  His  hands  on  her.  Instantly  she  experienced  the 
miraculous  strengthening  which  enabled  her   to    lift  up    the    long    bowed 

1  Luke  xiii.  lo — 17. 

2  Luke  xiii.  12,     "  Thou  hast  been  loosed."     The  perfect  implies  the  instantaneousness  and  perma- 
nence of  the  result. 


4IO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  crooked  frame,  and  instantly  she  broke  into  utterances  of  gratitude 
to  God.  But  her  strain  of  thanksgiving  was  interrupted  by  the  narrow 
and  ignorant  indignation  of  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue.  Here,  under 
his  very  eyes,  and  without  any  reference  to  the  "  little  brief  authority  " 
which  gave  him  a  sense  of  dignity  on  each  recurring  Sabbath,  a  woman — 
a  member  of  his  congregation — had  actually  had  the  presumption  to  be 
healed  !  Armed  with  his  favorite  "  texts,"  and  in  all  the  fussiness  of 
official  hypocrisy,  he  gets  up  and  rebukes  the  perfectly  innocent  multi- 
tude, telling  them  that  it  was  a  gross  instance  of  Sabbath-breaking  for 
them  to  be  healed  on  that  sacred  day,  when  they  might  just  as  well  be 
healed  on  any  of  the  other  six  days  of  the  week.  That  the  offense  con- 
sisted solely  in  the  being  healed  is  clear,  for  he  certainly  could  not  mean 
that,  if  they  had  any  sickness,  it  was  a  crime  for  them  to  come  to  the 
synagogue  at  all  on  the  Sabbath  day.  Now,  as  the  poor  woman  does 
not  seem  to  have  spoken  one  word  of  entreaty  to  Jesus,  or  even  to  have 
called  His  attention  to  her  case,  the  utterly  senseless  address  of  this 
man  could  only  by  any  possibility  mean  either  "  You  sick  people  must 
not  come  to  the  synagogue  at  all  on  the  Sabbath,  under  present  circum- 
stances, for  fear  you  should  be  led  into  Sabbath-breaking  by  having  a 
miraculous  cure  performed  upon  you;"  or  "If  any  one  wants  to  heal  you 
on  a  Sabbath,  you  must  decline."  And  these  remarks  he  has  neither  the 
courage  to  address  to  Jesus  Himself,  nor  the  candor  to  address  to  the 
poor  healed  woman,  but  preaches  at  them  both  by  rebuking  the  multi- 
tude, who  had  no  concern  in  the  action  at  all,  beyond  the  fact  that  they 
had  been  passive  spectators  of  it  ! 

The  whole  range  of  the  Gospels  does  not  supply  any  other  instance 
of  an  interference  so  illogical,  or  a  stupidity  so  hopeless ;  and  the  indirect, 
underhand  way  in  which  he  gave  vent  to  his  outraged  ignorance  brought 
on  him  that  expression  of  our  Lord's  indignation  which  he  had  not  dared 
openly  to  brave.  "Hypocrite .'"  was  the  one  crushing  word  with  which 
Jesus  addressed  him.  This  silly  official  had  been  censorious  with  Him 
because  He  had  spoken  a  few  words  to  the  woman,  and  laid  upon  her  a 
healing  hand ;  and  with  the  woman  because,  having  been  bent  double, 
she  lifted  herself  up  and  glorified  God  !  It  would  be  difficult  to  imacrine 
such  a  paralysis  of  the  moral  sense,  if  we  did  not  daily  see  the  stultify- 
ing effect  produced  upon  the  intellect  by  the  "deep  slumber  of  a  decided 
opinion,"  especially  when  the  opinion  itself  rests  upon  nothing  better  than 
a  meaningless  tradition.      Now  Jesus  constantly  varied  the  arguments  and 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  41 1 

appeals  by  which  He  endeavored  to  show  the  Pharisees  of  His  nation 
that  their  views  about  the  Sabbath  only  degraded  it  from  a  divine  benefit 
into  a  revolting  bondage/  To  the  Rabbis  of  Jerusalem  He  justified 
Himself  by  an  appeal  to  His  own  character  and  authority,  as  supported 
by  the  triple  testimony  of  John  the  Baptist,  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of  the 
Father  Himself,  who  bore  witness  to  Him  by  the  authority  which  He 
had  given  Him.'  To  the  Pharisees  of  Galilee  He  had  quoted  the  direct 
precedents  of  Scripture, ^  or  had  addressed  an  appeal,  founded  on  their 
own  common  sense  and  power  of  insight  into  the  eternal  principles  of 
things.*  But  the  duller  and  less  practiced  intellect  of  these  Peraeans 
might  not  have  understood  either  the  essential  love  and  liberty  implied 
by  the  institution  of  the  Sabbath,  or  the  paramount  authority  of  Jesus 
as  Lord  of  the  Sabbath.  It  could  not  rise  above  the  cogency  of  the 
argumentu7]t  ad  hoviinem.  It  was  only  capable  of  a  conviction  based  on 
their  own  common  practices  and  received  limitations.  There  was  not  one 
of  them  who  did  not  consider  himself  justified  in  unloosing  and  leading 
to  the  water  his  ox  or  his  ass  on  the  Sabbath, '  although  that  involved 
far  more  labor  than  either  laying  the  hand  on  a  sick  woman,  or  even 
being  healed  by  a  miraculous  word  !  If  their  Sabbath  rules  gave  way  to 
the  needs  of  ox  or  ass,  ought  they  not  to  give  way  to  the  cruel  necessi- 
ties of  a  daughter  of  Abraham?  If  they  might  do  much  more  labor  on 
the  Sabbath  to  abbreviate  a  few  hours'  thirst,  might  not  He  do  much 
less  to  terminate  a  Satanically  cruel  bondage  which  had  lasted,  lo  !  these 

1  It  is  a  curious  but  instructive  fact  that  the  Jews  of  Palestine  to  this  day  greatly  resemble  their 
Pharisaic  predecessors.  "  I  have  no  heart,"  says  Dr.  Thomson,  "  to  dwrell  on  their  absurd  superstitions, 
their  intense  fanaticism,  or  their  social  and  domestic  institutions  and  manners,  comprising  an  incredible 
and  grotesque  me'iange  of  filth  and  finery,  Pharisaic  self-righteousness  and  Sadducean  licentiousness.  The 
following  is  a  specimen  of  the  puerilities  enjoined  and  enforced  by  their  learned  Rabbis  :—A  Jew  must  not 
carry  on  the  Sabbath  even  so  much  as  a  pocket-handkerchief,  except  within  the  walls  0/  ike  city.  If  there  are  no 
walls  it  follows,  according  to  their  perverse  logic,  that  he  must  not  carry  it  at  all  !  To  avoid  this  difficulty, 
here  in  Safed,  they  resort  to  what  is  called  eruz/.  Poles  are  set  up  at  the  ends  of  the  streets,  and  strings 
stretched  from  the  one  to  the  other.  This  string  represents  a  wall,  and  a  conscientious  ye-.v  may  carry  his  hand- 
kerchief anywhere  within  these  strings.  I  was  once  amused  by  a  devout  Israelite  who  was  walking  with  me 
on  his  Sabbath.  When  we  came  to  the  end  of  the  street  the  string  was  gone,  and  so  by  another  fiction  he 
was  ix.  liberty  to  go  on  without  reference  to  what  was  in  his  pocket,  because  he  had  not  passed  the  wall.  The 
last  time  I  was  here  they  had  abandoned  this  absurdity,  probably  to  avoid  the  constant  ridicule  it  brought 
upon  them."     What  a  commentary  on  the  kind  of  Sabbatarianism  which  Christ  combated  ! 

2  John  V.  17 — 47. 

3  Luke  vi.  3—5. 

4  Luke  vi.  g. 

5  It  might,  moreover,  as  they  were  well  aware,  have  been  avoided  altogether  if  their  Oriental  laziness, 
and  want  of  real  earnestness,  had  not  prevented  them  from  rendering  such  tasks  unnecessary  by  pro- 
curing a  supply  of  water  over  night.  But  this  kind  of  letter-worship  must  of  its  very  nature  be  purely 
artificial. 


412  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

eighteen  years?  At  reasonings  so  unanswerable,  no  wonder  that  His  ad- 
versaries were  ashamed,  and  that  the  simpler,  more  unsophisticated  people 
rejoiced  at  all  the  glorious  acts  of  mercy  which  He  wrought  on  their 
behalf.' 

Again  and  again  was  our  Lord  thus  obliged  to  redeem  this  great 
primeval  institution  of  God's  love  from  these  narrow,  formal,  pernicious 
restrictions  of  an  otiose  and  unintelligent  tradition.  But  it  is  evident  that 
He  attached  as  much  importance  to  the  noble  and  loving  freedom  of  the 
day  of  rest  as  they  did  to  the  stupefying  inaction  to  which  they  had  re- 
duced the  normal  character  of  its  observance.  Their  absorbing  attachment 
to  it,  the  frenzy'  which  filled  them  when  He  set  at  naught  their  Sab- 
batarian uncharities,  rose  from  many  circumstances.  They  were  wedded 
to  the  religious  system  which  had  long  prevailed  among  them,  because  it 
is  easy  to  be  a  slave  to  the  letter,  and  difficult  to  enter  into  the  spirit ; 
easy  to  obey  a  number  of  outward  rules,  difficult  to  enter  intelligently 
and  self-sacrificingly  into  the  will  of  God  ;  easy  to  entangle  the  soul  in  a 
network  of  petty  observances,  difficult  to  yield  the  obedience  of  an  enlight- 
ened heart;  easy  to  be  haughtily  exclusive,  difficult  to  be  humbly  spiritual; 
easy  to  be  an  ascetic  or  a  formalist,  difficult  to  be  pure,  and  loving,  and 
wise,  and  free;  easy  to  be  a  Pharisee,  difficult  to  be  a  disciple ;  very  easy 
to  embrace  a  self-satisfying  and  sanctimonious  system  of  rabbinical  observ- 
ances, very  difficult  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart,  and  all  the  might, 
and  all  the  soul,  and  all  the  strength.  In  laying  His  ax  at  the  root  of 
their  proud  and  ignorant  Sabbatarianism,  He  was  laying  His  ax  at  the 
root  of  all  that  "miserable  micrology "  which  they  had  been  accustomed 
to  take  for  their  religious  life.  Is  the  spirit  of  the  sects  so  free  in  these 
days  from  Pharisaic  taint  as  not  to  need  such  lessons  ?  Will  not  these 
very  words  which  I  have  written — although  they  are  but  an  expansion  of 
the  lessons  which  Jesus  incessantly  taught — yet  give  offense  to  some  who 
read  them  ? 

1  They  might  say,  If  she  has  been  bound  these  eighteen  years,  surely  she  might  wait  yet  one  day 
longer  !  But  that  very  circumstance  He  makes  an  argument  (or  the  contrary,  for  he  who  loves  his 
neighbor  as  himself  would  rather  say,  Not  one  moment  longer  must  she  suffer,  if  help  can  be  afforded 
her!  Could  it  be  forbidden  thus  to  help?  The  "  ought  not"  of  verse  i6  catechetically  answers,  with 
infinite  condescension,  the  inconsiderate,  proud,  and  unintelligent  "ought"  of  verse  14.  "Men  ought" 
was  the  theme  there  ;  so  now  the  "  ought"  is  abundantly  returned  ;  "ought  not  she,  according  to  the  law 
of  love,  which  specially  ordains  God's  works  for  the  Sabbath,  as  man's  labor  for  the  remaining  days,  to  be 
loosed  from  this  misery?" 

2  Luke  vi.  11,  "They  were  filled  with  frenzy."  The  attachment  to  the  Sabbath  was  not  all  religious  ; 
it  was  due  in  part  to  the  obstinate  conservatism  of  an  exclusive  nationality,  and  as  such  it  even  attracted 
heathen  notice. 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  413 

One  more  such  incident  is  recorded — the  sixth  embittered  controversy 
of  the  kind  in  which  they  had  involved  our  Lord.'  Nothing  but  Sabba- 
tarianism which  had  degenerated  into  monomania  could  account  for  their 
so  frequently  courting  a  controversy  which  always  ended  in  their  total 
discomfiture.  On  ascertain  Sabbath,  which  was  the  principal  day  for 
Jewish  entertainments,''  Jesus  was  invited  to  the  house  of  one  who,  as  he 
is  called  a  ruler  of  the  Pharisees,  must  have  been  a  man  in  high  position, 
and  perhaps  even  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrin.  The  invitation  was  one 
of  those  to  which  He  was  so  often  subjected,  not  respectful  or  generous, 
but  due  either  to  idle  curiosity  or  downright  malice  Throughout  the 
meal  He  was  carefully  watched  by  hostile  scrutiny.  The  Pharisees,  as 
has  been  well  said,  "performed  the  duty  of  religious  espionage  with  ex- 
emplary diligence."'  Among  the  unbidden  guests  who,  Oriental  fashion, 
stood  about  the  room  and  looked  on,  as  they  do  to  this  day  during  the 
continuance  of  a  meal,  was  a  man  afflicted  with  the  dropsy.  The  promi- 
nent position  in  which  He  stood,  combined  with  the  keen  watchfulness  of 
the  Pharisees,  seems  to  show  that  he  had  been  placed  there  designedly, 
either  to  test  Christ's  willingness  to  respect  their  Sabbath  prejudices,  or 
to  defeat  His  miraculous  power  by  the  failure  to  cure  a  disease  more  in- 
veterate, and  less  amenable  to  curative  measures,  than  any  other.  If  so, 
this  was  another  of  those  miserable  cases  in  which  these  unfeeling  teach- 
ers of  the  people  were  ready  to  make  the  most  heart-rending  shame  or 
the  deepest  misery  a  mere  tool  to  be  used  or  thrown  aside,  as  chance 
might  serve,  in  their  dealings  with  Jesus.  But  this  time  Jesus  antici- 
pated, and  went  to  meet  half  way  the  subtle  machinations  of  this  learned 
and  distinguished  company.      He  asked  them    the  very  simple  question — 

"Is  it  lawful  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath  day?" 

They  wou/d  not  say  "Yes;"  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  dared  not 
say  "No  !"  Had  it  been  unlawful,  it  was  their  positive  function  and  duty 
to  say  so  then  and  there,  and  without  any  subterfuge  to  deprive  the  poor 

1  Luke  xiv.  i — 6.  The  others  were  the  healing  <it  Bethesda  (John  v.  10) ;  the  scene  in  the  corn-field 
(Mark  ii.  23) ;  the  healing  of  the  withered  hand  (Matt.  xii.  10),  of  the  blind  man  at  Siloam  (John  ix.  14), 
and  of  the  paralytic  woman  (Luke  xiii.  14). 

2  Neh.  viii.  g — 12.  No  cooking  was  done  (Exod.  xvi.  23) ;  but,  as  those  feasts  mi/st  have  necessitated 
more  or  less  labor,  the  fact  shows  how  little  real  earnestness  there  was  in  the  Jewish  Sabbatarianism  ;  how 
fast  and  loose  they  could  play  with  their  own  convictions  ;  how  physical  self-indulgence  and  unintelligent 
routine  had  usurped  the  place  of  spiritual  enlightenment.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  no  inconsistency 
whatever  in  our  Lord's  accfp/ino-  such  invitations'  there  was  nothing  wrong  in  them,  and  nothing  out  of 
accordance  with  true  principles  ;  and  therefore  Jesus  could  sanction  them  with  His  presence.  But  had 
there  been  any  true  principle  involved  in  the  Jewish  view,  tA^t  ought  to  have  thought  them  wrong. 

3  Luke  xiv.  i — 6. 


414  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

sufferer,  so  far  as  in  them  lay,  of  the  miraculous  mercy  which  was  pre- 
pared for  him.  If  they  dared  not  say  so — either  for  fear  of  the  people, 
or  for  fear  of  instant  refutation,  or  because  the  spell  of  Christ's  awful 
ascendency  was  upon  them,  or  out  of  a  mere  splenetic  pride,  or — to 
imagine  better  motives — because  in  their  inmost  hearts,  if  any  spot  re- 
mained in  them  uncrusted  by  idle  and  irreligious  prejudices,  they  felt  that 
it  zuas  lawful,  and  more  than  lawful,  right — then,  by  their  own  judgment, 
they  left  Jesus  free  to  heal  without  the  possibility  of  censure.  Their 
silence,  therefore,  was,  even  on  their  own  showing,  and  on  their  own 
principles,  His  entire  justification.  His  mere  simple  question,  and  their 
inability  to  answer  it,  was  an  absolute  decision  of  the  controversy  in  His 
favor.     He  therefore  took  the  man,  healed  him,  and  let  him  go. 

And  then  He  appealed,  as  before,  to  their  own  practice.  "  Which  of 
you  shall  have  a  son,'  or  (even)  an  ox,  fallen  into  a  pit,  and  will  not 
straightway  pull  him  out  on  the  Sabbath  day?"  They  knew  that  they 
cou/d  only  admit  the  fact,  and  then  the  argument  a  fortiori  was  irresist- 
ible ;  a  man  was  more  important  than  a  beast ;  the  extrication  of  a  beast 
involved  more  labor  by  far  than  the  healing  of  a  man.  Their  base  little 
plot  only  ended  in  the  constrained  and  awkward  silence  of  a  complete 
refutation  which  they  were  too  ungenerous  to  acknowledge. 

Jesus  deigned  no  farther  to  dwell  on  a  subject  which  to  the  mind 
of  every  candid  listener  had  been  set  at  rest  for  ever,  and  He  turned 
their  thoughts  to  other  lessons.  The  dropsy  of  their  inflated  self-satis- 
faction was  a  disease  far  more  difficult  to  heal  than  that  of  the  sufferer 
whom  they  had  used  to  entrap  Him.  Scarcely  was  the  feast  ready,  when 
there  arose  among  the  distinguished  ':ompany  one  of  those  unseemly 
struggles  for  precedence  which — comrron,  nay,  almost  universal  as  they 
are — show  the  tendencies  of  human  nature  on  its  weakest  and  most  con- 
temptible side. "  And  nothing  more  clearly  showed  the  essential  hollow- 
ness  of  Pharisaic  religion  than  its  intense  pride  and  self-exaltation.  Let 
one  anecdote  suffice.  The  King  Jannaeus  had  on  one  occasion  invited 
several  Persian  Satraps,  and  among  the  guests  asked  to  meet  them  was 
the  Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  Shetach.  The  latter  on  entering  seated  himself 
at  table  between  the  King  and  the  Queen.  Being  asked  his  reason  for 
such  a  presumptuous  intrusion,  he  replied  that  it  was  written  in  the  Book 

1  The  true  reading  is  "Son."  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  Jews  had  always  theoretically  2l&- 
mitted,  and  acted  on,  the  very  principle  which  our  Lord  asserts  ;  and  they  do  so  to  this  day — f.^.,the  Jews 
of  Tiberias,  with  all  their  Sabbatarianism,  bathe  often  on  the  Sabbath. 

2  Luke  xiv.  7 — 11. 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  415 

of  Jesus  Ben  Sirach,  "  Exalt  wisdom  and  she  shall   exalt   thee,  and  shall 
make  thee  sit  among  princes."' 

The  Jews  at  this  period  had  adopted  the  system  of  triclinia  from 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the  "  chief  seat  "  was  the  middle  seat  in 
the  central  lectus.  Observing  the  anxiety  of  each  guest  to-  secure  this 
place  for  himself,  ^  our  Lord  laid  down  a  wiser  and  better  principle  of 
social  courtesy,  which  involved  the  far  deeper  lesson  of  spiritual  humility. 
Just  as  in  earthly  society  the  pushing,  intrusive,  self-conceited  man  must 
be  prepared  for  many  a  strong  rebuff,  and  will  find  himself  often  com- 
pelled to  give  place  to  modest  merit,  so  in  the  eternal  world,  "whoso- 
ever exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased,  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall 
be  exalted."  Pride,  exclusiveness,  self-glorification,  have  no  place  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Humility  is  the  only  passport  which  can  obtain  for 
us  an  entrance  there. 

"  Humble  we  must  be,  if  to  heaven  we  go  ; 
High  is  the  roof  there,  but  the  gate  is  low." 

And  He  proceeded  to  teach  them  another  lesson,  addressed  to  some 
obvious  foible  in  the  character  of  His  host.^  Luxury,  ostentation,  the 
hope  of  a  return,  are  not  true  principles  of  hospitality.  A  richer  rec- 
ompense awaits  the  kindness  bestowed  upon  the  poor  than  the  adulatory 
entertainment  of  the  friendly  and  the  rich.  In  receiving  friends  and 
relatives,  do  not  forget  the  helpless  and  the  afflicted.''  Interested  benefi- 
cence is  nothing  in  the  world  but  a  deceitful  selfishness.  It  may  be  that 
thou  wouldest  have  won  a  more  eternal  blessing  if  that  dropsical  man 
had  been  invited  to  remain — if  those  poor  lookers-on  were  counted  among 
the  number  of  the  guests. 

At  this  point  one  of  the  guests,  perhaps  because  he  thought  that 
these  lessons  were  disagreeable  and  severe,  interposed  a  remark  which, 
under    the  circumstances,  rose  very  little    above  the  level  of  a  vapid  and 

1  Ecclus.  XV.  5  ;  xxxix.  4  ;  cf.  Prov.  iv.  8. 

2  Luke  xiv.  7. 

3  Luke  xiv.  12 — 14. 

4  Our  Lord  knew  that  the  conscience  of  each  hearer,  even  unaided  by  the  ordinary  idioms  of  Oriental 
speech,  would  rightly  understand  the  bold  and  sometimes  almost  paradoxical  form  into  which  He  purposely 
cast  His  precepts.  That  the  "call  not  thy  friends"  means  "call  not  only  thy  friends,  but  also,"  &c.,  has 
been  admitted  by  all  except  a  few  fanatical  commentators.  Even  skeptics  have  seen  that  our  Lord's  sayings 
are  not  to  be  attacked  on  methods  of  interpretation  which  would  make  them  repulsive  to  natural  affection 
no  less  than  to  common  sense.  See,  for  other  passages  which  require  .imilar  principles  of  interpretation. 
Matt.  V.  46,  47  (Luke  vi.  32 — 34);  ix.  13;  Luke  xiv.  26  (comp.  Matt.  x.  37);  John  vi.  27  ;  i  Cor.  i.  17  ;  xv.  10. 
See  also  Prov.  viii.  10.  It  is  of  course  obvious  to  add  that  the  truest  kindness  and  charity  to  the  poor  would 
in  these  days  by  no  means  consist  in  merely  entertaining  them  at  meals. 


4i6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

misleading  platitude.'  He  poured  upon  the  troubled  waters  a  sort  of 
general  impersonal  aphorism.  Instead  of  profiting  by  these  Divine  lessons, 
he  seemed  inclined  to  rest  content  with  "  an  indolent  remission  of  the 
matter  into  distant  futurity."  as  though  he  were  quite  sure  of  that  bless- 
edness, of  which  he  seems  to  have  a  very  poor  and  material  conception. 
But  our  Lord  turned  his  idle  poor  remark  into  a  fresh  occasion  for  most 
memorable  teaching.  He  told  them  a  parable  to  show  that  "to  eat  bread 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven"  might  involve  conditions  which  those  who  felt 
so  very  sure  of  doing  it  would  not  be  willing  to  accept.  He  told  them 
of  a  king  who  had  sent  out  many  invitations  to  a  great  banquet,  but  who, 
when  the  due  time  came,''  was  met  by  general  refusals.  One  had  his  estate 
to  manage,  and  was  positively  obliged  to  go  and  see  a  new  additon  to  it. 
Another  was  deep  in  buying  and  selling,  and  all  the  business  it  entailed. 
A  third  was  so  lapped  in  contented  domesticity  that  his  coming  was  out 
of  the  question.  Then  the  king,  rejecting,  in  his  anger,  these  disrespect- 
ful and  dilatory  guests,  bade  his  slaves  go  at  once  to  the  broad  and  narrow 
streets,  and  bring  in  the  poor  and  maimed,  and  lame  and  blind  ;  and  when 
that  was  done,  and  there  still  was  room,  he  sent  them  to  urge  in  even 
the  houseless  wanderers  by  the  hedges  and  the  roads.  The  application 
to  all  present  was  obvious.  The  worldly  heart — whether  absorbed  in  the 
management  of  property,  or  the  acquisition  of  riches,  or  the  mere  sensual- 
isms of  domestic  comfort— was  incompatible  with  any  desire  for  the  true 
banquet  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  Gentile  and  the  Pariah,  the 
harlot  and  the  publican,  the  laborer  of  tlw  roadside  and  the  beggar  of  the 
streets,  these  might  be  there  in  greater  multitudes  than  the  Scribe  with  his 
boasted  learning,  and  the  Pharisee  with  his  broad  phylactery.  "  For  I  say 
unto  you,"  He  added  in  His  own  person,  to  point  the  moral  more  im- 
mediately to  their  own  hearts,  "  that  none  of  those  men  who  were  called 
shall  taste  of  my  supper."  It  was  the  lesson  which  He  so  often  pointed. 
"  To  be  invited  is  one  thing,  to  accept  the  invitation  is  another.  Many 
are  called,  but  few  are  chosen.  Many — as  the  heathen  proverb  said — 
'Many  bear  the  narthex,  but  few  feel  the  inspiring  god.'" 

Teachings  like  these  ran  throughout  this  entire  period  of  the  Lord's 
ministry.  The  parable  just  recorded  was,  in  its  far-reaching  and  many- 
sided  significance,  a  reproof  not    only  to    the    close    exclusiveness  of    the 

1  Luke  xiv.  15 — 24. 

2  These  customs  remain  unchanged.     The  message  "  Come,  for  the  supper  is  ready"  may  be  heard 
to  this  day;  and  to  refuse  is  a  high  insult. 


THE    prodigal's    RETURN. Lukd  tV.  20. 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  417 

Pharisees,  but  also  to  their  worldliness  and  avarice.  On  another  occasion, 
when  our  Lord  was  mainly  teaching  His  own  disciples,  He  told  them  the 
parable  of  the  Unjust  Steward,'  to  show  them  the  necessity  of  care  and 
faithfulness,  of  prudence  and  wisdom,  in  so  managing  the  affairs  and 
interests  and  possessions  of  this  life  as  not  to  lose  hereafter  their  heritage 
of  the  eternal  riches.  It  was  impossible — such  was  the  recurrent  burden 
of  so  many  discourses — to  be  at  once  worldly  and  spiritual ;  to  be  at  once 
the  slave  of  God  and  the  slave  of  Mammon.  With  the  supreme  and 
daring  paradox  which  impressed  His  divine  teaching  on  the  heart  and 
memory  of  the  world.  He  urged  them  to  the  foresight  of  a  spiritual 
wisdom  by  an  example  drawn  from  the  foresight  of  a  criminal  cleverness. 
Although  Christ  had  been  speaking  in  the  first  instance  to  the 
Apostles,  some  of  the  Pharisees  seem  to  have  been  present  and  to  have 
heard  Him  ;  and  it  is  a  characteristic  fact  that  this  teaching,  more  than 
any  other,  seems  to  have  kindled  their  most  undisguised  derision.  They 
began  to  treat  Him  with  the  most  open  and  insolent  disdain.  And  why  ? 
Because  they  were  Pharisees,  and  yet  were  fond  of  money."  Had  not 
they,    then,    in    their    own    persons,    successfully    solved    the    problem    of 

1  Luke  xvi.  i — 13.  If  such  immense  and  needless  diiEculties  had  not  been  raised  about  this  parable, 
it  would  have  seemed  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  the  point  held  up  for  imitation  in  the  steward  is  not 
his  injustice  and  extravagance,  but  the  foresight  (opovlfiu(j,  "prudently,"  not  as  in  the  E.V.,  "wisely") 
with  which  he  anticipated,  and  the  skill  with  which  he  provided  against,  his  ultimate  difficulties.  It  really 
seems  as  if  commentators  were  so  perplexed  by  the  parable  as  hardly  to  have  got  beyond  Julian's  foolish 
and  unworthy  criticism,  that  it  commends  and  sanctions  cheating  !  What  can  be  clearer  than  the  very 
simple  deductions?  This  steward,  having  been  a  bad  steward,  showed  diligence,  steady  purpose,  and 
clear  sagacity  in  his  dishonest  plan  for  extricating  himself  from  the  consequences  of  past  dishonesty  :  be 
ye  faithful  stewards,  and  show  the  same  diligence,  purpose,  sagacity,  in  subordinating  the  present  and  the 
temporal  to  the  requirements  of  the  eternal  and  the  future.  Just  as  the  steward  made  himself  friends  of 
the  tenants,  who,  when  his  income  failed,  received  him  into  their  houses,  so  do  ye  use  your  wealth — (and 
time,  opportunity,  knowledge,  is  wealth,  as  well  as  money) — for  the  good  of  your  fellow-men  ;  that  when 
you  leave  earth  poor  and  naked,  these  fellow-men  may  welcome  you  to  treasures  that  never  fail.  Such 
seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  verse  9,  which  is  somewhat  difficult.  The  lesson  is,  in  fact,  the  same  as  in  the 
famous  traditional  saying  of  Christ,  "  Show  yourselves  approved  money-changers."  The  parables  of  the 
Unjust  Judge  and  the  Importunate  Suitor  show  quite  as  clearly  as  this  parable  that  the  lesson  conveyed  by 
a  parable  may  be  enforced  by  principles  of  contrast,  and  may  involve  no  commendation  of  those  whose 
conduct  conveys  the  lesson.  It  is  very  probable  that  both  these  parables  were  drawn  from  circumstances 
which  had  recently  occurred. 

2  Luke  xvi.  14,  "They  scornfully  ridiculed  Him."  The  vice  of  avarice  seems  inherent  in  the  Jewish 
race.  To  this  day,  says  Dr.  Thomson,  speaking  of  the  Jews  in  Palestine,/'  Everybody  trades,  speculates, 
cheats.  The  shepherd-boy  on  the  mountain  talks  of  piasters  from  morning  till  night  ;  so  does  the  muleteer 
on  the  road,  the  farmer  in  the  field,  the  artisan  in  the  shop,  the  merchant  in  his  magazine,  the  pacha  in  his 
palace,  the  kadi  in  the  hall  of  judgment,  the  mullah  in  the  mosque,  the  monk,  the  priest,  the  bishop — 
money,  money,  money  !  the  desire  of  every  heart,  the  theme  of  every  tongue,  the  end  of  every  aim. 
Everything  is  bought  and  sold — each  prayer  has  its  price,  each  sin  its  tariff."  Quarrels  about  the  money, 
complaints  of  the  greed  and  embezzlement  of  the  Rabbis,  wrong  distribution  of  the  alms,  and  the  honorary 
pay,  form  the  main  history  of  the  Je%vs  in  modern  Jerusalem.  It  is  a  profoundly  melancholy  tale,  and  no 
one  who  knows  the  facts  will  deny  it — least  of  all  pious  and  worthy  Jews. 

27 


41 8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

"making  the  best  of  both  worlds?"  Who  could  doubt  their  perfect 
safety  for  the  future  ?  nay,  the  absolute  certainty  that  they  would  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  "  chief  seats,"  the  most  distinguished  and  conspicuous  places 
in  the  world  to  come  ?  Were  they  not,  then,  standing  witnesses  of  the 
absurdity  of  the  supposition  that  the  love  of  money  was  incompatible  with 
the  love  of  God  ? 

Our  Lord's  answer  to  them  is  very  much  compressed  by  St.  Luke,' 
but  consisted,  first,  in  showing  them  that  respectability  of  life  is  one 
thing,  and  sincerity  of  heart  quite  another.  Into  the  new  kingdom,  for 
which  John  had  prepared  the  way,  the  world's  lowest  were  pressing  in, 
and  were  being  accepted  before  them  ;  the  Gospel  was  being  rejected  by 
them,  though  it  was  not  the  destruction,  but  the  highest  fulfillment  of 
the  Law.  Nay — such  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  apparently  discon- 
nected verse  which  follows' — even  to  the  Law  itself,  of  which  not  one 
tittle  should  fail,  they  were  faithless,  for  they  could  connive  at  the  vio- 
lation of  its  most  distinct  provisions.  In  this  apparently  isolated  remark 
He  alluded,  in  all  probability,  to  their  relations  to  Herod  Antipas,  whom 
they  were  content  to  acknowledge  and  to  flatter,  and  to  whom  not  one 
of  them  had  dared  to  use  the  brave  language  of  reproach  which  had 
been  used  by  John  the  Baptist,  although,  by  the  clearest  decisions  of  the 
Law  which  they  professed  to  venerate,  his  divorce  from  the  daughter  of 
Aretas  was  adulterous,  and  his  marriage  with  Herodias  was  doubly  adul- 
terous, and    worse. 

But  to  make  the  immediate  truth  which  He  had  been  explaining  yet 
more  clear  to  them,  He  told  them  the  parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and 
Lazarus.3  Like  all  of  our  Lord's  parables,  it  is  full  of  meaning,  and 
admits  of  more  than  one  application  ;  but  at  least  they  could  not  miss 
the  one    plain    and    obvious    application,  that    the    decision    of   the    next 

1  Luke  xvi.  15 — 18. 

2  C£.  Luke  vii.  29  ;  xv.  i  ;  Matt.  xi.  12,  13.  This  is  Luther's  interpretation,  and  seems  to  be  the  correct 
one,  though  Stier  does  not  think  it  worthy  of  refutation. 

3  It  is  a  curious,  but  perhaps  accidental,  coincidence  that  in  this  parable  alone  is  any  name  given  ;  as 
also  Lazarus  is  the  only  recipient — except  Bartimaeus  and  Malchus — of  our  Lord's  miracles  who  is  dis- 
tinctly named.  Perhaps  there  may  be  some  reference  intended  to  names  written  in  heaven,  but  forgotten 
on  earth,  and  blazoned  on  earth,  but  unrecorded  in  heaven  (comp.  the  ira6r}  of  verse  22  with  the  silence 
about  the  burial  of  Lazarus).  The  name  Lazarus,  however  [either'^W  k"?,/^,  ,3^.^  (Chald.  La)  (?),  "  Not  help," 
a^oTidiiToa  (Theophyl.),  or  better,^).^.  ''^}<^>E!i  ezer,  "  God  my  help  "],  is  particularly  appropriate.  Herberger, 
quoted  by  Stier.  says,  "We  have  in  this  parable  a  veritable  window  opened  into  hell,  through  which  we  can 
see  what  passes  there."  But  inferences  of  this  kind  must  be  very  cautiously  pressed.  It  is  a  wise  and 
w.-11-established  rule,  that  "  Theologia  parabolica  non  est  demonstrativa."  Some  see  in  "  the  five  brethren  "  a 
r   ■:_■;  ■;:■'  v>  !hc  five  sons  of  Annas — an  entirely  questionable  allusion. 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  419 

world  will  often  reverse  the  estimation  wherein  men  are  held  in  this ; 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  ;  that  the  heart  must  make  its  choice 
between  the  "  good  things "  of  this  life  and  those  which  the  externals  of 
this  life  do  not  affect.  And  what  may  be  called  the  epilogue  of  this 
parable  contains  a  lesson  more  solemn  still — namely,  that  the  means  of 
grace  which  God's  mercy  accords  to  every  living  soul  are  ample  for  its 
enlightenment  and  deliverance  ;  that  if  these  be  neglected,  no  miracle  will 
be  wrought  to  startle  the  absorbed  soul  from  its  worldly  interests  ;  that 
"  if  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  neither  will  they  be  per- 
suaded though  one  rose  from  the  dead."  Auditu  Jidcli  salvamur,  says 
Bengel,  non  apparitionibus — "We  are  saved  by  faithful  hearing,  not  by 
ghosts." 

This  constant  reference  to  life  as  a  time  of  probation,  and  to  the 
Great  Judgment,  when  the  one  word  "Come,"  or  "Depart,"  as  uttered 
by  the  Judge,  shall  decide  all  controversies  and  all  questions  for  ever, 
naturally  turned  the  thoughts  of  many  listeners  to  these  solemn  subjects. 
But  there  is  a  great  and  constant  tendency  in  the  minds  of  us  all  to  re- 
fer such  questions  to  the  case  of  others  rather  than  our  own — to  make 
them  questions  rather  of  speculative  curiosity  than  of  practical  import. 
And  such  tendencies,  which  rob  moral  teaching  of  all  its  wholesomeness, 
and  turn  its  warnings  into  mere  excuses  for  uncharity,  were  always 
checked  and  discouraged  by  our  Lord.  A  special  opportunity  was  given 
Him  for  this  on  one  occasion  during  those  days  in  which  He  was  going 
"through  the  cities  and  villages,  teaching,  and  journeying  toward  Jeru- 
salem."' He  had — not,  perhaps,  for  the  first  time — been  speaking  of  the 
small  beginnings  and  the  vast  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  alike  in 
the  soul  and  in  the  world  ;  and  one  of  His  listeners,  in  the  spirit  of  un- 
wise though  not  unnatural  curiosity,  asked  Him,  "  Lord,  are  there  few 
that  be  saved?"  Whether  the  question  was  dictated  by  secure  self-satis- 
faction, or  by  despondent  pity,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  in  either  case  our 
Lord's  answer  involved  a  disapproval  of  the  inquiry,  and  a  statement  of 
the  wholly  different  manner  in  which  such  questions  should  be  approached. 
"  Few  "  or  "  many  "  are  relative  terms.  Waste  not  the  precious  oppor- 
tunities of  life  in  idle  wonderment,  but  strive.  Through  that  narrow 
gate,  none — not  were  they  a  thousand  times  of  the  seed  of  Abraham — 
can  enter  without  earnest  effort.  And  since  the  efforts,  the  willful  efforts, 
the  erring  efforts  of    many  fail — since    the   day  will   come  when  the  door 

I  Luke  xiii.  22 — 30 ;  Matt.  xiii.  31,  32  ;  Mark  iv.  30,  31. 


420  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

shall  be  shut,  and  it  shall  be  for  ever  too  late  to  enter  there — since  no 
impassioned  appeal  shall  then  admit,  no  claim  of  olden  knowledge  shall 
then  be  recognized — since  some  of  those  who  in  their  spiritual  pride 
thought  that  they  best  knew  the  Lord,  shall  hear  the  awful  repudiation, 
"I  know  you  not" — strive  ye  to  be  of,  those  that  enter  in.  For  many 
shall  enter  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  and  yet  thou,  O  son  of 
Abraham,  mayest  be  excluded.  And  behold,  once  more— it  may  well 
sound  strange  to  thee,  yet  so  it  is — "  there  are  last  which  shall  be  first, 
and  there  are  first  which  shall  be  last."' 

Thus  each  vapid  interruption,  each  scornful  criticism,  each  erroneous 
question,  each  sad  or  happy  incident,  was  made  by  Jesus,  throughout  this 
journey,  an  opportunity  for  teaching  to  His  hearers,  and  through  them 
to  all  the  world,  the  things  that  belonged  unto  their  peace.  And  He 
did  so  once  more,  when  "a  certain  lawyer"  stood  up  tempting  Him,  and 
asked — not  to  obtain  guidance,  but  to  find  subject  for  objection — the 
momentous  question,  "  What  must  I  do  to  obtain  eternal  life  ? "  Jesus, 
seeing  through  the  evil  motive  of  his  question,  simply  asked  him  what 
was  the  answer  to  that  question  which  was  given  in  the  Law  which  it 
was  the  very  object  of  the  man's  life  to  teach  and  to  explain.  The 
lawyer  gave  the  best  summary  which  the  best  teaching  of  his  nation  had 
by  this  time  rendered  prevalent.  Jesus  simply  confirmed  his  answer,  and 
said,  "  This  do,  and  thou  shalt  live."  But  wanting  something  more  than 
this,  and  anxious  to  justify  a  question  which  from  his  own  point  of  view 
was  superfluous,  and  which  had,  as  he  well  knew,  been  asked  with  an 
ungenerous  purpose,  the  lawyer  thought  to  cover  his  retreat  by  the 
fresh  question,  "And  who  is  my  neighbor?"  Had  Jesus  asked  the  man's 
own  opinion  on  this  question,  He  well  knew  how  narrow  and  false  it 
would  have  been  ;  He  therefore  answered  it  Himself,  or  rather  gave  to 
the  lawyer  the  means  for  answering  it,  by  one  of  His  most  striking 
parables.  He  told  him  how  once  a  man,  going  down  the  rocky  gorge 
which  led  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
robbers,  whose  frequent  attacks  had  given  to  that  descent  the  ill-omened 
name    of    "  the    bloody    way,"    and    had    been    left    by    these     Bedawin 

I  Dante,  in  his  Inferno,  has  finely  expanded  this  truth  : — 

"  He  in  the  world  was  one 
For  arrogance  noted  ;  to  his  memory 
No  virtue  lent  its  luster.     .     .     .     There  above 
How  many  hold  themselves  for  mighty  kings 
Who  here,  like  swine,  shall  wallow  in  the  mire, 
Leaving  behind  them  horrible  dispraise." 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  421 

marauders,  after  the  fashion  which  they  still  practice,  bleeding,  naked, 
and  half  dead  upon  the  road.  A  priest  going  back  to  his  priestly  city 
had  passed  that  way,  caught  a  glimpse  of  him,  and  crossed  over  to  the 
other  side  of  the  road.  A  Levite,  with  still  cooler  indifference,  had  come 
and  stared  at  him,  and  quietly  done  the  same.  But  a  Samaritan  journey- 
ing that  way — one  on  whom  he  would  have  looked  with  shuddering 
national  antipathy,  one  in  whose  very  shadow  he  would  have  seen  pol- 
lution—a good  Samaritan,  pattern  of  that  Divine  Speaker  whom  men 
rejected  and  despised,  but  who  had  come  to  stanch  those  bleeding  wounds 
of  humanity,  for  which  there  was  no  remedy  either  in  the  ceremonial  or 
the  moral  law — came  to  him,  pitied,  tended  him,  mounted  him  on  his 
own  beast,  trudged  beside  him  on  the  hard,  hot,  dusty,  dangerous  road, 
and  would  not  leave  him  till  he  had  secured  his  safety,  and  generously 
provided  for  his  future  wants.  Which  of  these  three,  Jesus  asked  the 
lawyer,  was  neighbor  to  him  who  fell  among  thieves  ?  The  man  was  not 
so  dull  as  to  refuse  to  see ;  but  yet,  knowing  that  he  would  have 
excluded  alike  the  Samaritans  and  the  Gentiles  from  his  definition  of 
"  neighbors,"  he  has  not  the  candor  to  say  at  once,  "  The  Samaritan" 
but  uses  the  poor  periphrasis,  "He  that  did  him  the  kindness."  "Go," 
said  Jesus,  "and  do  thou  likewise."  I,  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners, hold  up  the  example  of  this  Samaritan  to  thee. ' 

We  must  not,  however,  suppose  that  these  two  months  of  mission- 
progress  were  all  occupied  in  teaching  which,  however  exalted,  received 
its  external  shape  and  impulse  from  the  errors  and  controversies  which 
met  the  Saviour  on  His  way.  There  were  many  circumstances  during 
these  days  which  must  have  filled  His  soul  with  joy. 

Pre-eminent  among  these  was  the  return  of  the  Seventy.^  We  can- 
not, of  course,  suppose  that  they  returned  in  a  body,  but  that  from  time 
to  time,  two  and  two,  as  our  Lord  approached  the  various  cities  and 
villages  whither  He  had  sent  them,  they  came  to  give  Him  an  account 
of  their  success.  And  that  success  was  such  as  to  fill  their  simple  hearts 
with  astonishment  and  exultation.  "  Lord,"  they  exclaimed,  "  even  the 
devils  are  subject  unto  us  through  Thy  name,"  Though  He  had  given 
them  no  special  commission  to  heal  demoniacs,  though  in  one  conspicuous 
instance  even  the  Apostles  had  failed  in  this  attempt,  yet  now  they  could 
cast  oMt  devils  in  their  Master's  name.      Jesus,  while   entering   into  their 

1  Luke  X.  25 — 37. 

2  Luke  X.  17 — 20. 


422  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

joy,  yet  checked  the  tone  of  over-exultation,  and  rather  turned  it 
into  a  nobler  and  holier  channel.  He  bade  them  feel  sure  that  good 
was  eternally  mightier  than  evil ;  and  that  the  victory  over  Satan — his 
fall  like  lightning  from  heaven — had  been  achieved  and  should  continue 
for  ever.  Over  all  evil  influences  He  gave  them  authority  and  victory, 
and  the  word  of  His  promise  should  be  an  amulet  to  protect  them  from 
every  source  of  harm.  They  should  go  upon  the  lion  and  adder,  the 
young  lion  and  the  dragon  should  they  tread  under  feet;'  because  He 
had  set  His  love  upon  them,  therefore  would  He  deliver  them:  He  would 
set  them  up  because  they  had  known  His  name.  And  yet  there  was  a 
subject  of  joy  more  deep  and  real  and  true — less  dangerous  because  less 
seemingly  personal  and  conspicuous  than  this — on  which  He  rather  fixed 
their  thoughts  :  it  was  that  their  names  had  been  written,  and  stood  un- 
obliterated,'  in  the  Book  of  Life  in  heaven. 

And  besides  the  gladness  inspired  into  the  heart  of  Jesus  by  the 
happy  faith  and  unbounded  hope  of  His  disciples,  He  also  rejoiced  in 
spirit  that,  though  rejected  and  despised  by  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  He 
was  loved  and  worshipped  by  Publicans  and  Sinners.  The  poor  to  whom 
He  preached  His  Gospel — the  blind  whose  eyes  He  had  come  to  open 
— the  sick  whom  He  had  come  to  heal — the  lost  whom  it  was  His  mis- 
sion to  seek  and  save  ; — these  all  thronged  with  heartfelt  and  pathetic 
gratitude  to  the  Good  Shepherd,  the  Great  Physician.  The  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  as  usual  murmured,'  but  what  mattered  that  to  the  happy 
listeners?  To  the  weary  and  heavy-laden  He  spoke  in  every  varied  form 
of  hope,  of  blessing,  of  encouragement.  By  the  parable  of  the  Impor- 
tunate Widow  He  taught  them  the  duty  of  faith,  and  the  certain  answer 
to  ceaseless  and  earnest  prayer.*  By  the  parable  of  the  haughty,  respect- 
able, fasting,  alms-giving,  self-satisfied  Pharisee — who,  going  to  make  his 
boast  to  God  in  the  Temple,  went  home  less  justified  than  the  poor 
Publican,  who  could  only  reiterate  one  single  cry  for  God's  mercy  as  he 
stood  there  beating  his  breast,  and  with  downcast  eyes — He  taught  them 

1  Ps.  xci.  13,  14. 

2  Luke  X.  20;  Rev.  xx.  12,  15. 

3  Luke  XV.  I,  2.  This  is  the  third  instance  in  which  this  self-righteous  exclusiveness  is  rebuked.  The 
first  was  at  the  house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee  (Luke  vii.  39  ;  see  Vol.  L,  p.  301)  ;  the  second  at  Matthew's 
feast  (Matt.  ix.  11  ;  Vol.  L,  p.  348) ;  and  the  same  thing  occurred  again  in  the  case  of  Zacchaeus  (Luke  xix. 
7).  In  each  of  these  instances  Jesus  with  a  deep  irony  "  argued  with  His  accusers  on  their  own  premises, 
accepting  their  estimate  of  themsihis  and  of  the  class  with  whom  they  deemed  it  discreditable  to  associate, 
as  righteous  and  sinful  respectively." 

4  Luke  xviii.  i — 8. 


TEACHINGS  OF  THE  JOURNEY.  423 

that  God  loves  better  a  penitent  humility  than  a  merely  external  service, 
and  that  a  broken  heart  and  a  contrite  spirit  were  sacrifices  which  He 
would  not  despise.'  Nor  was  this  all.  He  made  them  feel  that  they 
were  dear  to  God  ;  that,  though  erring  children,  they  were  His  children 
still.  And,  therefore,  to  the  parables  of  the  Lost  Sheep  and  the  Lost 
Drachma,  He  added  that  parable  in  which  lies  the  whole  Gospel  in  its 
richest  and  tenderest  grace — the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 

Never  certainly  in  human  language  was  so  much^ — such  a  world  of 
love  and  wisdom  and  tenderness — compressed  into  such  few  immortal 
words. '  Every  line,  every  touch  of  the  picture  is  full  of  beautiful  eternal 
significance.  The  poor  boy's  presumptuous  claim  for  all  that  life  could 
give  him — the  leaving  of  the  old  home — the  journey  to  a  far  country — 
the  brief  spasm  of  "enjoyment"  there — the  mighty  famine  in  that  land 
— the  premature  exhaustion  of  all  that  could  make  life  noble  and  endur- 
able— the  abysmal  degradation  and  unutterable  misery  that  followed — the 
coming  to  himself,  and  recollection  of  all  that  he  had  left  behind — the 
return  in  heart-broken  penitence  and  deep  *  humility — the  father's  far-off 
sight  of  him.  and  the  gush  of  compassion  and  tenderness  over  this  poor 
returning  prodigal — the  ringing  joy  of  the  whole  household  over  him  who 
had  been  loved  and  lost,  and  had  now  come  home — the  unjust  jealousy 
and  mean  complaint  of  the  elder  brother — and  then  that  close  of  the 
parable  in  a  strain  of  music — "Son,  thoic  art  ever  with  me,  and  all  that  I 
have  is  thine.  It  was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry,  and  be  glad :  for 
this  thy  brother  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  ;  was  lost,  and  is  found " — 
all  this  is  indeed  a  divine  epitome  of  the  wandering  of  man  and  the  love 
of  God  such  as  no  literature  has  ever  equaled,  such  as  no  ear  of  man 
has  ever  heard  elsewhere.  Put  in  the  one  scale  all  that  Confucius,  or 
Sakya  Mouni,  or  Zoroaster,  or  Socrates  ever  wrote  or  said — and  they 
wrote  and  said  many  beautiful  and  holy  words — and  put  in  the  other  the 
Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  alone,  with  all  that  this  single  parable  con- 
notes and  means,  and  can  any  candid  spirit  doubt  which  scale  would 
outweigh  the  other  in  eternal  preciousness — in  divine  adaptation  to  the 
wants  of  man  ? 

So  this  great  journey  grew  gradually  to  a  close.  The  awful 
solemnity — the    shadow,    as    it   were,    of    coming    doom — the    half-uttered 

1  Luke  xviii.  9 — 14. 

2  I  have  already  touched  on  this  parable  (supra.  Vol.  I.,  p.  426) ;  but  a  few  more  words  on  the  subject 
will  perhaps  be  pardoned  here. 


424  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

"  too  late "  which  might  be  dimly  heard  in  its  tones  of  warning — char- 
acterize the  single  record  of  it  which  the  Evangelist  St.  Luke  has 
happily  preserved.'  We  seem  to  hear  throughout  it  an  undertone  of 
that  deep  yearning  which  Jesus  had  before  expressed — "  I  have  a  baptism 
to  be  baptized  with;  and  how  am  I  straitened  until  it  be  accomplished!" 
It  was  a  sorrow  for  all  the  broken  peace  and  angry  opposition  which 
His  work  would  cause  on  earth — a  sense  that  He  was  prepared  to  plunge 
into  the  "willing  agony"  of  the  already  kindled  flame.^  And  this  seems 
to  have  struck  the  minds  of  all  who  heard  Him;  they  had  an  expecta- 
tion, fearful  or  glad  according  to  the  condition  of  their  consciences,  of 
something  great.  Some  new  manifestation — some  revelation  of  the 
thoughts  of  men's  hearts — was  near  at  hand.  At  last  the  Pharisees  sum- 
moned up  courage  to  ask  Him  "when  the  kingdom  of  God  should 
come?" 3  There  was  a  certain  impatience,  a  certain  materialism,  possibly 
also  a  tinge  of  sarcasm  and  depreciation  in  the  question,  as  though  they 
had  said,  "  When  is  all  this  preaching  and  preparation  to  end,  and  the 
actual  time  to  arrive?"  His  answer,  as  usual,  indicated  that  their  point 
of  view  was  wholly  mistaken.  The  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
could  not  be  ascertained  by  the  kind  of  narrow  and  curious  watching  ■•  to 
which  they  were  addicted.  False  Christs  and  mistaken  Rabbis  might  cry 
" Lo  here!"  and  " Lo  there!"  but  that  kingdom  was  already  in  the 
midst  of  them  ;  nay,  if  they  had  the  will  and  the  wisdom  to  recognize 
and  to  embrace  it,  that  kingdom  was  witJiin  them.  That  answer  was 
sufficient  to  the  Pharisees,  but  to  His  disciples  He  added  words  which 
implied  the  fuller  explanation.  Even  they  did  not  fully  realize  that  the 
kingdom  had  already  come.  Their  eyes  were  strained  forward  in  intense 
and  yearning  eagerness  to  some  glorious  future  ;  but  in  the  future,  glori- 
ous as  it  would  be,  they  would  still  look  backward  with  yet  deeper 
yearning,  not  unmingled  with  regret,  to  this  very  past — to  these  days  of 
the  Son  of  Man,  in  which  they  were  seeing  and  their  hands  handling  the 

1  As  the  main  events  and  teaching  of  this  episode  in  St.  Luke  (ix.  51 — xviii.  14)  are  not  recorded  by 
the  other  Synoptists,  and  as  the  narratives  of  the  three  meet  again  at  Luke  xviii.  15  ;  Matt.  xix.  13  ;  Mark 
X.  13,  it  is  a  natural  and  reasonable  supposition  that  the  things  narrated  beyond  that  point  belong  to  a  time 
subsequent  to  the  journey.  We  can,  of  course,  only  conjecture  why  St.  Luke  is  almost  our  sole  authority 
for  this  period  of  two  months  ;  it  is,  however,  possible  that  both  St,  Matthew  and  St.  Peter  (who  was  the 
informant  of  St.  Mark)  were  but  little  with  Jesus  at  this  time,  and  were  themselves  engaged  in  a  mission 
similar  to  that  of  the  Seventy. 

2  Luke  xii.  49 — 53. 

3  Luke  xvii.  20 — 37. 

4  Luke  xvii.  20 — 37. 


TEACHINGS  OF  TIIP:  JOURNEY.  425 

Word  of  Life.  In  those  days,  let  them  not  be  deceived  by  any  "  Lo 
there  !  Lo  here  ! "  nor  let  them  waste  in  feverish  and  fruitless  restlessnes.s 
the  calm  and  golden  opportunities  of  life.  For  that  coming  of  the  Son 
of  Man  should  be  bright,  sudden,  terrible,  universal,  irresistible  as  the 
lightning  flash ;  but  before  that  day  He  must  suffer  and  be  rejected. 
Moreover,  that  gleam  of  His  second  advent  would  flame  upon  the  mid- 
night of  a  sensual,  unexpectant  world,  as  the  flood  rolled  over  the  festive 
sensualism  in  the  days  of  Noah,  and  the  fire  and  brimstone  streamed 
from  heaven  upon  the  glittering  rottenness  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain. 
Woe  to  those  who  should  in  that  day  be  casting  regretful  glances  on  a 
world  destined  to  pass  away  in  flame !  For  though  till  then  the  business 
and  companionships  of  life  should  continue,  and  all  its  various  fellowships 
of  toil  or  friendliness,  that  night  would  be  one  of  fearful  and  of  final 
separations  ! 

The  disciples  were  startled  and  terrified  by  words  of  such  strange 
solemnity.  "Where,  Lord?"  they  ask  in  alarm.  But  to  the  "where" 
there  could  be  as  little  answer  as  to  the  "when,"  and  the  coming  of 
God's  kingdom  is  as  little  geographical  as  it  is  chronological.'  "Where- 
soever the  body  is,"  He  says,  "thither  will  the  vultures  be  gathered 
together."^  The  mystic  Armageddon  is  no  place  whose  situation  you 
may  fix  by  latitude  and  longitude.  Wherever  there  is  individual  wicked- 
ness, wherever  there  is  social  degeneracy,  wherever  there  is  deep  national 
corruption,  thither  do  the  eagle-avengers  of  the  Divine  vengeance  wing 
their  flight  from  far  :  thither  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  come  nations  of 
a  fierce  countenance,  "  swift  as  the  eagle  flieth,"  to  rend  and  to  devour. 
"  Her  young  ones  also  suck  up  blood :  and  where  the  slain  are,  there  is 
she." 3  Jerusalem — nay,  the  whole  Jewish  nation — was  falling  rapidly  into 
the  dissolution  rising  from  internal  decay  ;  and  already  the  flap  of  aveng- 
ing pinions  was  in  the  air.  When  the  world  too  should  lie  in  a  state 
of  morbid  infamy,  then  should  be  heard  once  more  the  rushing  of  those 
"congregated  wings." 

1  See  Stier,  iv.  287. 

2  The  Jews,  and  indeed  the  ancients  generally,  classed  the  vulture  with  the  eagle.  I  cannot  believe 
the  interpretation  of  Chrysostom,  Theophylactus,  &c.,  that  the  "  body  "  is  Christ,  and  the  gathering  eagles 
are  His  saints.  All  that  can  be  said  for  this  view  may  be  seen  in  Bishop  Wordsworth  on  Matt.  xxiv.  2S  ; 
but  a  reference  to  Job  xxxix.  30,  "  Her  young  ones  also  suck  up  blood  :  and  where  the  slain  are,  there  is 
the,"  seems  alone  sufficient  to  refute  it. 

3  Deut.  xxviii.  49 ;  Job  xxxix.  30.  Cf.  Hab.  i.  8,  "  They  shall  fly  as  the  eagle  that  hasteth  to  eat;" 
Hos.  viii.  I,  "Set  the  trumpet  to  thy  mouth.  He. shall  fly  as  an  eagle  against  the  house'of  the  Lord, 
because  they  have  transgressed  my  covenant,  and  trespassed  against  my  law."  In  fact,  the  best  com- 
mentary to  the  metaphor  will  be  found  in  Rev.  xix.  17 — 21. 


426 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


Is  not  all  history  one  long  vast  commentary  on  these  great  prophe- 
cies ?  In  the  destinies  of  nations  and  of  races  has  not  the  Christ  re- 
turned again  and  again  to  deliver  or  to  judge  ? 


CHAPTER    XLV. 


THE     FEAST     OF     DEDICATION. 


Thrice  blessed  whose  lives  are  faithful  prayers, 
Whose  loves  in  higher  love  endure  ; 
What  souls  possess  themselves  so  pure. 

Or  is  there  blessedness  like  theirs  ? — Tennyson. 


OWHERE,  in  all  probability,  did  Jesus  pass 
more  restful  and  happy  hours  than  in  the  quiet 
house  of  that  little  family  at  Bethany,  which, 
as  we  are  told  by  St.  John,  "  He  loved."  The 
family,  so  far  as  we  know,  consisted  only  of 
Martha,  Mary,  and  their  brother  Lazarus.  That 
Martha  was  a  widow — that  her  husband  was,  or 
had  been,  Simon  the  Leper — that  Lazarus  is 
identical  with  the  gentle  and  holy  Rabbi  of  that 
name  mentioned  in  the  Talmud — are  conjectures 
that  may  or  may  not  be  true  ; '  but  we  see  from 
the  Gospels  that  they  were  a  family  in  easy  circumstances, 
and  of  sufficient  dignity  and  position  to  excite  considerable 
attention  not  only  in  their  own  little  village  of  Bethany, 
but  even  in  Jerusalem.  The  lonely  little  hamlet,  lying 
among  its  peaceful  uplands,  near  Jerusalem,  and  yet  completely  hidden 
from  it  by  the  summit  of  Olivet,  and  thus 

"  Not  wholly  in  the  busy  world,  nor  quite 
Beyond  it," 

must  always  have  had  for  the  soul  of  Jesus  an  especial  charm  ;  and  the 
more  so  because  of  the  friends  whose  love  and  reverence  always  placed 
at  His  disposal  their  holy  and  happy  home.  It  is  there  that  we  find 
Him  on  the  eve  of  the  Feast  of  the  Dedication,  which  marked  the  close 
of  that  public  journey  designed  for  the  full  and  final  proclamation  of 
His  coming  kingdom.  ^ 

1  Peak,  f.  21,  2,  quoted  by  Sepp,  iii.  8. 

2  St.  Luke,  as  Stier  observes,  may  have  anticipated  the  true  order  of  this  anecdote  in  order  to  let  it 
throw  light  on  the  question  of  the  lawyer,  "  What  must  I  do?"  (See  Luke  x.  25,  38 — 42.)  This,  if  correct, 
is  a  good  illustration  of  the  subjective  considerations  which  seem  to  dominate  in  this  episode  of  his 
Gospel. 


428  '  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

It  was  natural  that  there  should  be  some  stir  in  the  little  household 
at  the  coming  of  such  a  Guest,  and  Martha,  the  busy,  eager-hearted, 
affectionate  hostess,  "on  hospitable  thoughts  intent,"  hurried  to  and  fro 
with  excited  energy  to  prepare  for  His  proper  entertainment.  Her  sister 
Mary,  too,  was  anxious  to  receive  Him  fittingly,'  but  her  notions  of  the 
reverence  due  to  Him  were  of  a  different  kind.  Knowing  that  her  sister 
was  only  too  happy  to  do  all  that  could  be  done  for  His  material  com- 
fort, she,  in  deep  humility,  sat  at  His  feet  and  listened  to  His  words. 

Mary  was  not  to  blame,  for  her  sister  evidently  enjoyed  the  task 
which  she  had  chosen  of  providing  as  best  she  could  for  the  claims  of 
hospitality,  and  was  quite  able,  without  any  assistance,  to  do  everything 
that  was  required.  Nor  was  Martha  to  blame  for  her  active  service ;  her 
sole  fault  was  that,  in  this  outward  activity,  she  lost  the  necessary  equil- 
ibrium of  an  inward  calm.  As  she  toiled  and  planned  to  serve  Him,  a 
little  touch  of  jealousy  disturbed  her  peace  as  she  saw  her  quiet  sister 
sitting — "idly"  she  may  have  thought — at  the  feet  of  their  great  Visitor, 
and  leaving  the  trouble  to  fall  on  her.  If  she  had  taken  time  to  think, 
she  could  not  but  have  acknowledged  that  there  may  have  been  as  much 
of  consideration  as  of  selfishness  in  Mary's  withdrawal  into  the  background 
in  their  domestic  administration ;  but  to  be  just  and  noble-minded  is  always 
difficult,  nor  is  it  even  possible  when  any  one  meanness,  such  as  petty 
jealousy,  is  suffered  to  intrude.  So,  in  the  first  blush  of  her  vexation, 
Martha,  instead  of  gently  asking  her  sister  to  help  her,  if  help,  indeed, 
were  needed — an  appeal  which,  if  we  judge  of  Mary  aright,  she  would 
instantly  have  heard — she  almost  impatiently,  and  not  quite  reverently, 
hurries  in,  and  asks  Jesus  if  He  really  did  not  care  to  see  her  sister 
sittino-  there  with  her  hands  before  her,  while  she  was  left  single-handed 
to  do  all  the  work.  Would  He  not  tell  her  (Martha  could  not  have  fairly 
added  that  common  piece  of  ill-nature,  "It  is  of  no  use  for  me  to  tell 
her")  to  go  and  help? 

An  imperfect  soul,  seeing  what  is  good  and  great  and  true,  but  very 
often  failing  in  the  attempt  to    attain  to  it,  is  apt  to  be  very  hard  in  its! 
judgments  on  the    short-comings  of  others.     But   a    divine  and  sovereign. 

soul a  soul  that  has  more  nearly  attained  to  the   measure  of  the  stature 

of  the  perfect  man— takes  a  calmer  and  gentler,  because  a  larger-hearted 
view  of  those  little  weaknesses  and  indirectnesses  which  it  crnnot  but  daily 
see.     And  so   the  answer  of  Jesus,  if  it  were  a  reproof,  was  at  any  rate 

I  Luke  X.  36. 


THE  FEAST  OF  DEDICATION.  429 

an  infinitely  gentle  and  tender  one,  and  one  which  would  purify  but  would 
not  pain  the  poor  faithful  heart  of  the  busy,  loving  matron  to  whom  it 
was  addressed.  "Martha,  Martha,"  so  He  said — and  as  we  hear  that  most 
natural  address  may  we  not  imagine  the  half-sad,  half-playful,  but  wholly 
kind  and  healing  smile  which  lightened  His  face  ? — "thou  art  anxious  and 
bustling  about  many  things,  whereas  but  one  thing  is  needful;'  but  Mary 
chose  for  herself  the  good  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her." 
There  is  none  of  that  exaltation  here  of  the  contemplative  over  the  active 
life  which  Roman  Catholic  writers  have  seen  in  the  passage,  and  on  which 
they  are  so  fond  of  dwelling.  Either  may  be  necessary,  both  must  be 
combined. 

Paul,  as  has  well  been  said,  in  his  most  fervent  activity,  had  yet 
the  contemplativeness  and  inward  calm  of  Mary ;  and  John,  with  the 
most  rapt  spirit  of  contemplation,  could  yet  practice  the  activity  of  Martha. 
Jesus  did  not  mean  to  reprobate  any  amount  of  work  undertaken  in  His 
service,  but  only  the  spirit  of  fret  and  fuss — the  want  of  all  repose  and 
calm — the  ostentation  of  superfluous  hospitality — in  doing  it ;  and  still 
more  that  tendency  to  reprobate  and  interfere  with  others,  which  is  so 
often  seen  in  Christians  who  are  as  anxious  as  Martha,  but  have  none  of 
Mary's  holy  trustfulness  and  perfect  calm. 

It  is  likely  that  Bethany  was  the  home  of  Jesus  during  His  visits  to 
Jerusalem,  and  from  it  a  short  and  delightful  walk  over  the  Mount  of 
Olives  would  take  Him  to  the  Temple.  It  was  now  winter-time,  and  the 
Feast  of  the  Dedication  was  being  celebrated.^"  This  feast  was  held  on 
the  25th  of  Cisleu,  and,  according  to  Wieseler,  fell  this  year  on  Dec.  20. 
It  was  founded  by  Judas  Maccabjeus  in  honor  of  the  cleansing  of  the 
Temple  in  the  year  B.C.  164,  six  years  and  a  half  after  its  fearful 
profanation  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  Like  the  Passover  and  the  Taber- 
nacles, it  lasted  eight  days,  and  was  kept  with  great  rejoicing.^  Besides 
its  Greek  name  of  Encaenia,  it  had  the  name  of  ra  fcoTa,  or  the  Lio-hts, 
and  one  feature  of  the  festivity  was  a  general  illumination  to  celebrate 
the  legendary  miracle  of  a  miraculous  multiplication,  for  eight  days,  of 
the  holy  oil  which  had    been    found    by  Judas    Maccabaeus    in  one  sino-le 

1  Such  seems  to  be  the  force  of  trciaTaaa  in  St.  Luke,  who  almost  alone  uses  the  word  [xx.  i  (cf.  ii.  3S); 
Acts  xxiii.  27  (cf.  i  Thess.  v.  3)]. 

2  John  X.  22.     Called  by  the  Jews   Chaniikkah. 

3  Some  account  of    these  events   may  be    seen  in    I  Mace.  iv.   52 — 59;    2  Mace.    x.    i — 8.     "They 
dcckci  the  fore-frctnt  of  the  Temple  with  crowns  of  gold  and  with  shields"  (Jos.  Anlt.  xii.  7,  §  7). 


430  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

jar  sealed  with  the  High  Priest's  seal.'  Our  Lord's  presence  at  such  a 
festival  sanctions  the  right  of  each  Church  to  ordain  its  own  rites  and 
ceremonies,  and  shows  that  He  looked  with  no  disapproval  on  the  joyous 
enthusiasm  of  national   patriotism. 

The  eastern  porch  of  the  Temple  still  retained  the  name  of  Solo- 
mon's Porch,  because  it  was  at  least  built  of  the  materials  which  had 
formed  part  of  the  ancient  Temple."  Here,  in  this  bright  colonnade, 
decked  for  the  feast  with  glittering  trophies,  Jesus  was  walking  up  and 
down,  quietly,  and  apparently  without  companions,  sometimes,  perhaps, 
gazing  across  the  valley  of  the  Kidron  at  the  whited  sepulchers  of  the 
prophets,  whom  generations  of  Jews  had  slain,  and  enjoying  the  mild 
winter  sunlight,  when,  as  though  by  a  preconcerted  movement,  the 
Pharisaic  party  and  their  leaders  suddenly  surrounded  ^  and  began  to 
question  Him.  Perhaps  the  very  spot  where  He  was  walking,  recalling 
as  it  did  the  memories  of  their  ancient  glory — perhaps  the  memories  of 
the  glad  feast  which  they  were  celebrating,  as  the  anniversary  of  a 
splendid  deliverance  wrought  by  a  handful  of  brave  men  who  had  over- 
thrown a  colossal  tyranny — inspired  their  ardent  appeal.  "  How  long," 
they  impatiently  inquired,  "dost  thou  hold  our  souls  in  painful  suspense? 
If  thou  really  art  the  Messiah,  tell  us  with  confidence.  Tell  us  here,  in 
Solomon's  Porch,  now,  while  the  sight  of  these  shields  and  golden 
crowns,  and  the  melody  of  these  citherns  and  cymbals,  recall  the  glory 
of  Judas  the  Asmonean — wilt  thou  be  a  mightier  Maccabaeus,  a  more 
glorious  Solomon  ?  shall  these  citrons,  and  fair  boughs,  and  palms,  which 
we  carry  in  honor  of  this  day's  victory,  be  carried  some  day  for  thee?" 
It  was  a  strange,  impetuous,  impatient  appeal,  and  is  full  of  significance. 
It  forms  their  own  strong  condemnation,  for  it  shows  distinctly  that  He 
had  spoken  words  and  done  deeds  which  would  have  justified  and  sub- 
stantiated such  a  claim  had  "He  chosen  definitely  to  assert  it.  And  if 
He  had  in  so  many  words  asserted  it — above  all,  had  He  asserted  it  in 
the  sense  and  with  the  objects  which  they  required — it  is  probable  that 
they  would  have  instantly  welcomed  Him  with  tumultuous  acclaim.     The 

1  Shahbath,  zi  b  ;  Rosh-hashanah,  14  b  (Derenbourg,  Hist.  Pal.  62  ;  Jos.  Antt.  xii.  7,  §  7).  The  eight  days 
had  in  reality  been  necessary  for  the  work  to  be  done.  Perhaps  Pars.  Sat.  v.  180  seqq.  are  a  description  of 
the  Chani>kkah,  though  called  by  mistake  "  Herodis  dies"  (Id.  165).  See  a  good  account  of  the  Feast  by  Dr. 
Ginsburg,  in   Kitto's  Bibl.  Cycl.  i.  653. 

2  Jos.  Anil.  XX.  g,  §  7.  That  the  actual  porch,  in  its  original  state,  had  been  left  standing,  is  wholly 
improbable. 

3  John  X.  24. 


THE  FEAST  OF  DEDICATION.  43  ^ 

place  where  they  were  speaking  recalled  the  most  gorgeous  dreams  of 
their  ancient  monarchy  ;  the  occasion  was  rife  with  the  heroic  memories 
of  one  of  their  bravest  and  most  successful  warriors;  the  political  condi- 
tions which  surrounded  them  were  exactly  such  as  those  from  which  the 
noble  Asmonean  had  delivered  them.  One  spark  of  that  ancient  flame 
would  have  kindled  their  inflammable  spirits  into  such  a  blaze  of  irre- 
sistible fanaticism  as  might  for  the  time  have  swept  away  both  the 
Romans  and  the  Herods,  but  which— since  the  hour  of  their  fall  had 
already  begun  to  strike,  and  the  cup  of  their  iniquity  was  already  full- 
would  only  have  antedated  by  many  years  the  total  destruction  which 
fell  upon  them,  first  when  they  were  slain  by  myriads  at  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  and  afterwards  when  the  false  Messiah,  Bar- 
Cochebas,  and  his  followers  were  so  frightfully  exterminated  at  the  capture 
of  Bethyr. 

But  the  day  for  political  deliverances  was  p^st ;  the  day  for  a  higher, 
deeper,  wider,  more  eternal  deliverance  had  come.  For  the  former  they 
yearned,  the  latter  they  rejected.  Passionate  to  claim  in  Jesus  an  exclu- 
sive temporal  Messiah,  they  repelled  Him  with  hatred  as  the  Son  of  God, 
the  Saviour  of  the  world.  That  He  was  their  Messiah  in  a  sense  far 
loftier  and  more  spiritual  than  they  had  ever  dreamed,  His  language  had 
again  and  again  implied;  but  the  Messiah  in  the  sense  which  they  re- 
quired He  was  not,  and  would  not  be.  And  therefore  He  does  not  mis- 
lead them  by  saying,  "  I  am  your  Messiah,"  but  He  refers  them  to  that 
repeated  teaching,  which  showed  how  clearly  such  had  been  His  claim, 
and  to  the  works  which  bore  witness  to  that  claim."  Had  they  been 
sheep  of  His  flock— and  He  here  reminds  them  of  that  great  discourse 
which  He  had  delivered  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  two  months  before 
—they  would  have  heard  His  voice,  and  then  He  would  have  given  them 
eternal  life,  and  they  would  have  been  safe  in  His  keeping;  for  no  one 
would  then  have  been  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  His  Father's  hand,  and 
he  added  solemnly,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

His  meaning  was  quite  unmistakable.  In  these  words  He  was  claim- 
ing not  only  to  be  Messiah,  but  to  be  Divine.  Had  the  oneness  with 
the  Father  which  He  claimed  been  nothing  more  than  that  subjective 
union  of  faith  and  obedience  which  exists  between  all  holy  souls  and 
their  Creator — His  words  could  have  given  no  more  offense  than  many 
a  saying  of  their  own  kings  and  prophets;  but  " ecce  Judaei  ititellexerunt 

I  See  John  v.  and  viii. 


THE  FEAST  OF  DEDICATION.  433 

But  they  could  not.  His  presence  overawed  them.  They  could  only 
make  a  passage  for  Him,  and  glare  their  hatred  upon  Him  as  He  passed 
from  among  them.  But  once  more,  here  was  a  clear  sign  that  all  teach- 
ing among  them  was  impossible.  He  could  as  little  descend  to  their 
notions  of  a  Messiah,  as  they  could  rise  to  His.  To  stay  among  them 
was  but  daily  to  imperil  His  life  in  vain.  Judea,  therefore,  was  closed 
to  Him,  as  Galilee  was  closed  to  Him.  There  seemed  to  be  one  district 
only  which  was  safe  for  Him  in  His  native  land,  and  that  was  Persa, 
the  district  beyond  the  Jordan.  He  retired,  therefore,  to  the  other 
Bethany — the  Bethany  beyond  Jordan,  where  John  had  once  been  baptiz- 
ing— and  there  He  stayed. 

What  were  the  incidents  of  this  last  stay,  or  the  exact  length  of 
its  continuance,  we  do  not  know.  We  see,  however,  that  it  was  not 
exactly  private,  for  St.  John  tells  us  that  many  resorted  to  Him  there,' 
and  believed  on  Him,  and  bore  witness  that  John — whom  they  held  to 
be  a  Prophet,  though  he  had  done  no  miracle— had  borne  emphatic 
witness  to  Jesus  in  that  very  place,  and  that  all  which  He  had  witnessed 
was  true. 

I  John  X.  41,  42.      For  Bethany,  v.  supra.  Vol.  I.,  p.  140. 


38 


CHAPTER   XLVI. 


THE      LAST      STAY      IN      PEIt^A. 


^?^^^yc 


"At  evening  time  it  shall  be  light." — Zech.   xiv.  7, 

III.  , mill,  ?^,., 

HEREVER    the 


ministry  of  Jesus  was  in  the 
slightest  degree  public,  there  we  invariably  find 
the  Pharisees  watching,  lying  in  wait  for  Him, 
tempting  Him,  trying  to  entrap  Him  into  some 
mistaken  judgment  or  ruinous  decision.  But 
perhaps  even  i/ie7r  malignity  never  framed  a 
question  to  which  the  answer  was  so  beset  with 
difficulties  as  when  they  came  to  "tempt"  Him 
with  the  problem,  "Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to 
put  away  his  wife  for  every  cause  ? " ' 

The  question  was  beset  with  difficulties  on 
every  side,  and  for  many  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  the  institution  of  Moses  on  the  subject 
was  ambiguously  expressed.  Then  this  had 
given  rise  to  a  decided  opposition  of  opinion  between  the  two  most 
important  and  flourishing  of  the  rabbinic  schools.  The  difference  of  the 
schools  had  resulted  in  a  difference  in  the  customs  of  the  nation.  Lastly 
the  theological,  scholastic,  ethical,  and  national  difficulties  were  further 
complicated  by  political  ones,  for  the  prince  in  whose  domain  the  ques- 
tion was  put  was  deeply  interested  in  the  answer,  and  had  already  put 
to  death  the  greatest  of  the  prophets  for  his  bold  expression  of  the 
view  which  was  most  hostile  to  his  own  practice.  Whatever  the  truckling 
Rabbis  of  Galilee  might  do,  St.  John  the  Baptist,  at  least,  had  left  no 
shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  what  was  his  interpretation  of  the  Law  of 
Moses,  and  he  had  paid  the  penalty  of  his  frankness  with  his  life. 

Moses  had  laid  down  the  rule  that  when  a  man  had  married  a  wife, 
and  "she  find  no  favor  in  his  eyes  because  he  hath  found  some  unclean- 
ness  (marg.,   'matter  of  nakedness,'   Heb.    "^i?  "11?,  ervath  dabhar)    in  her, 


X  Matt.  xix.  3 — 12  ;  Mark  x.  2 — 12. 


THE  LAST  STAY  IN  PER^A.  435 

then  let  him  write  a  bill  of  divorcement,  and  give  it  in  her  hand,  and 
send  her  out  of  his  house.  And  when  she  is  departed  out  of  his  house, 
she  may  go  and  be  another  man's  wife."'  Now  in  the  interpretation  of 
this  rule,  everything  depended  on  the  meaning  of  the  expression  ervath 
dabhar,  or  rather  on  the  meaning  of  the  single  word  ervath.  It  meant, 
generally,  a  stain  or  desecration,  and  Hillel,  with  his  school,  explained 
the  passage  in  the  sense  that  a  man  might  "  divorce  his  wife  for  any 
disgust  which  he  felt  towards  her  ;  "  even — as  the  celebrated  R.  Akiba 
ventured  to  say — if  he  saw  any  other  woman  who  pleased  him  more ; 
whereas  the  school  of  Shammai  interpreted  it  to  mean  that  divorce 
could  only  take  place  in  cases  of  scandalous  unchastity.  Hence  the  Jews 
had  the  proverb  that  in  this  matter,  as  in  so  many  others,  "  Hillel  loosed 
what  Shammai  bound." 

Shammai  was  morally  right  and  exegetically  wrong  ;  Hillel  exegetically 
right  and  morally  wrong.  Shammai  was  only  right  in  so  far  as  he  saw 
that  the  spirit  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  made  no  divorce  justifiable  ?'« 
foro  conscientiae,  except  for  the  most  flagrant  immorality  ;  Hillel  only  right 
in  so  far  as  he  saw  that  Moses  had  left  an  opening  for  divorce  in  foro 
civili  in  slighter  cases  than  these.  But  under  such  circumstances,  to  decide 
in  favor  of  either  school  would  not  only  be  to  give  mortal  offense  to  the 
other,  but  also  either  to  e.xasperate  the  lax  many,  or  to  disgust  the  high- 
minded  few.  For  in  those  corrupt  days  the  vast  majority  acted  at  any  rate 
on  the  principle  laid  down  by  Hillel,  as  the  Jews  in  the  East  continue  to 
do  to  this  day.  Such,  in  fact,  was  the  universal  tendency  of  the  times. 
In  the  heathen,  and  especially  in  the  Roman  world,  the  strictness  of  the 
marriage  bond  had  been  so  shamefully  relaxed,  that  whereas,  in  the 
Republic,  centuries  had  passed  before  there  had  been  one  single  instance 
of  a  frivolous  divorce,  under  the  Empire,  on  the  contrary,  divorce  was 
the  rule,  and  faithfulness  the  exception.  The  days  of  the  Virginias,  and 
Lucretias,  and  Cornelias  had  passed  ;  this  was  the  age  of  the  Julias,  the 
Poppaeas,  the  Messalinas,  the  Agrippinas — the  days  in  which,  as  Seneca 
says,  women  no  longer  reckoned  their  years  by  the  consuls,  but  by  the 
number  of  their  repudiated  husbands.  The  Jews  had  caught  up  the 
shameful  precedent,  and  since  polygamy  had  fallen  into  discredit,  they 
made  a  near  approach    to    it    by  the    ease  with  which    they  were  able  to 

I  Deut.  xxiv.  I,  2.  Literally,  "  nakedness  of  a  matter"  told  in  Bab.  JSmah,  i.  iS,  2,  that  Rabbi  Nach- 
man,  whenever  he  went  to  stay  at  a  town  for  a  short  time,  openly  sent  round  the  crier  for  a  wife  during 
his  abode  there  (Lightfoot,  //er.  Heb.  in  loc).  See  Excursus  III.,  "Jesus  and  Hillel;"  and  Excursus 
IX.,  "  Hypocrisy  of  the  Pharisees." 


436  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

dismiss  one  wife  and  take  another."  Even  Josephus,  a  Pharisee  of  the 
Pharisees,  who  on  every  possible  occasion  prominently  lays  claim  to  the 
character  and  position  of  a  devout  and  religious  man,  narrates,  without  the 
shadow  of  an  apology,  that  his  first  wife  had  abandoned  him,  that  he  had 
divorced  the  second  after  she  had  borne  him  three  children,  and  that  he 
was  then  married  to  a  third.  But  if  Jesus  decided  in  favor  of  Shammai — 
as  all  His  previous  teaching  made  the  Pharisees  feel  sure  that  in  this 
particular  question  He  wojild  decide — then  He  would  be  pronouncing  the 
public  opinion  that  Herod  Antipas  was  a  double-dyed  adulterer,  an  adul- 
terer  adulterously  wedded  to  an  adulterous  wife. 

But  Jesus  was  never  guided  in  any  of  His  answers  by  principles  of 
expediency,  and  was  decidedly  indifferent  alike  to  the  anger  of  multitudes 
and  to  the  tyrant's  frown.  His  only  object  was  to  give,  even  to  such  in- 
quirers as  these,  such  answers  as  should  elevate  them  to  a  nobler 
sphere.  Their  axiom,  "Is  it  lawficl?"  had  it  been  sincere,  would  have 
involved  the  answer  to  their  own  question.  Nothing  is  lawful  to  any 
man  who  doubts  its  lawfulness.  Jesus,  therefore,  instead  of  answering 
them,  directs  them  to  the  source  where  the  true  answer  was  to  be  found. 
Setting  the  primitive  order  side  by  side  with  the  Mosaic  institution — 
meeting  their  "Is  it  lawful?"  with  "Have  ye  not  read?" — He  reminds 
them  that  God,  who  at  the  beginning  had  made  man  male  and  female, 
had  thereby  signified  His  will  that  marriage  should  be  the  closest  and 
most  indissoluble  of  all  relationships" — transcending  and  even,  if  necessary, 
superseding  all  the  rest. 

"Why,  then,"  they  ask — eager  to  entangle  Him  in  an  opposition  to 
"the  fiery  law" — "did  Moses  command  to  give  a  writing  of  divorcement 
and  put  her  away?"  The  form  of  their  question  involved  one  of  those 
false  turns  so  common  among  the  worshippers  of  the  letter ;  and  on  this 
false  turn  they  based  their  inverted  pyramid  of  yet  falser  inferences.  And 
so  Jesus  at  once  corrected  them  :  "  Moses,  indeed,  for  your  hard-hearted- 
ness  permitted  you  to  put  away  your  wives  ;  but  from  the  beginning  it 
was  not  so;"  and  then  he  adds  as  formal  and  fearless  a  condemnation  of 
Herod  Antipas — without  naming  him — as  could  have  been  put  in  language, 

1  Divorce  is  still  very  common  among  the  Eastern  Jews;  in  1856  there  were  sixticn  cases  of  divorce 
among  the  small  Jewish  population  of  Jerusalem.  In  fact,  a  Jew  may  divorce  his  wife  at  any  time  and 
for  any  cause,  he  being  himself  the  sole  judge  ;  the  only  hindrance  is  that,  to  prevent  divorces  in  a  mere 
sudden  fit  of  spleen,  the  bill  of  divorce  must  have  the  concurrence  of  three  Rabbis,  and  be  written  on  ruled 
vellum,  containing  neither  more  nor  less  than  twelve  lines  ;  and  it  must  be  given  in  the  presence  of  ten 
witnesses. 

2  Gen.  ii.  24.     "They  two"  is  in  the  LXX.,  but  not  in  the  Hebrew. 


THE  LAST  STAY  IN  PER.EA.  437 

"Whoever  putteth  away  his  wife  and  marrieth  another,  except  for 
fornication,  committeth  adultery ;  and  he  who  marrieth  the  divorced 
woman  committeth  aduhery;"'  and  Herod's  case  was  the  worst  con- 
ceivable instance  of  both  forms  of  adultery,  for  he,  while  married  to  an 
innocent  and  undivorced  wife,  had  wedded  the  guilty  but  still  undivorced 
wife  of  Herod  Philip,  his  own  brother  and  host ;  and  he  had  done  this,' 
without  the  shadow  of  any  excuse,  out  of  mere  guilty  passion,  when  his 
own  prime  of  life  and  that  of  his  paramour  was  already  past. 

If  the  Pharisees  chose  to  make  any  use  of  this  to  bring  Jesus  into 
collision  with  Antipas,  and  draw  down  upon  Him  the  fate  of  John,  they 
might ;  and  if  they  chose  to  embitter  still  more  against  Him  the  schools 
of  Hillel  and  of  Shammai,  both  of  which  were  thus  shown  to  be  mis- 
taken— that  of  Hillel  from  deficiency  of  moral  insight,  that  of  Shammai 
from  lack  of  exegetical  acumen — they  might ;  but  meanwhile  He  had  once 
more  thrown  a  flood  of  light  over  the  difficulties  of  the  Mosaic  legisla- 
tion, showing  that  it  was  provisional,  not  final — transitory,  not  eternal. 
That  which  the  Jews,  following  their  famous  Hillel,  regarded  as  a  Divine 
permission  of  which  to  be  proud,  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  tolerated  evil 
permitted  to  the  outward  life,  though  not  to  the  enlightened  conscience 
or  the  pure  heart — was,  in  fact,  a  standing  witness  against  their  hard  and 
imperfect  state.^ 

The  Pharisees,  baffled,  perplexed,  ashamed  as  usual,  found  themselves 
again  confronted  by  a  transcendently  loftier  wisdom,  and  a  transcendently 
diviner  insight  than  their  own,  and  retired  to  hatch  fresh  plots  equally 
malicious,  and  destined  to  be  equally  futile.  But  rfiothing  can  more  fully 
show  the  necessity  of  Christ's  teaching  than  the  fact  that  even  the  dis- 
ciples were  startled  and  depressed  by  it.  In  this  bad  age,  when  corrup- 
tion was  so  universal — when  in  Rome  marriage  had  fallen  into  such  con- 
tempt and  desuetude  that  a  law  had  to  be  passed  which  rendered  celibates 
liable  to  a  fine — they  thought  the  pure  strictness  of  our  Lord's  precept 
so  severe  that  celibacy  itself  seemed  preferable ;  and  this  opinion  they  ex- 
pressed when  they  were  once  more  with  Him  in  the  house.  What  a  fatal 
blow  would  have  been  given  to  the  world's  happiness  and  the  world's 
morality,  had  He  assented  to  their  rash  conclusion  !  And  how  marvelous 
a  proof  is  it  of  His  Divinity,  that  whereas  every  other  pre-eminent  moral 

1  It  appears  from  St.  Matthew  that  Jesus  uttered  this  precept  to  the  Pharisees,  as  well  as  confided   it 
afterwards  to  His  disciples.     See  Matt.  xix.  9  ;  Mark  x.  11  {vide  supra,  p.  127). 

2  See  Deut.  x.  i6;  Isa.  xlviii.  4;  Ezek.  iii.  7,  &c.    And  yet,  according  to  Geiger  and  a  host  of  imitators, 
Jesus  was  a  Rabbi  of  the  school  of  Hillel,  and  had  taught  nothing  original! 


438  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

teacher — even  the  very  best  and  greatest  of  all — has  uttered  or  sanctioned 
more  than  one  dangerous  and  deadly  error  which  has  been  potent  to 
poison  the  life  or  peace  of  nations — a// the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  were 
absolutely  holy,  and  divinely  healthy  words.  In  His  reply  He  gives  none 
of  that  entire  preference  to  celibacy  which  would  have  been  so  highly 
valued  by  the  ascetic  and  the  monk,  and  would  have  troubled  the  con- 
sciences of  many  millions  whose  union  has  been  blessed  by  Heaven."  He 
refused  to  pronounce  upon  the  condition  of  the  celibate  so  absolute  a 
sanction.  All  that  He  said  was  that  this  saying  of  theirs  as  to  the  un- 
desirability  of  marriage  had  no  such  unqualified  bearing;  that  it  was 
impossible  and  undesirable  for  all  but  the  rare  and  exceptional  few. 
Some,  indeed,  there  were  who  were  unfitted  for  holy  wedlock  by  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  birth  or  constitution;'  some,  again,  by  the  infamous, 
though  then  common,  cruelties  and  atrocities  of  the  dominant  slavery ; 
and  some  who  withdrew  themselves  from  all  thoughts  of  marriage  for 
religious  purposes,  or  in  consequence  of  higher  necessities.  These  were 
not  better  than  others,  but  only  different.  It  was  the  duty  of  some  to 
marry  and  serve  God  in  the  wedded  state  ;  it  might  be  the  duty  of  others 
not  to  marry,  and  so  to  serve  God  in  the  celibate  state.^  There  is  not 
in  these  words  of  Christ  all  that  amount  of  difficulty  and  confusion  which 
some  have  seen  in  them.  His  precepts  find  their  best  comment  in  the 
7th  and  9th  chapters  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  His  clear 
meaning  is  that,  besides  the  rare  instances  of  natural  incapacity  for  mar- 
riage, there  are  a  few  others — and  to  these  few  alone  the  saying  of  the 
disciples  applied — whci  could  accept  the  belief  that  in  peculiar  times,  or 
owing  to  special  circtimstances,  or  at  the  pa7'amo2int  call  of  exceptional  duties, 
wedlock  must  by  them  be  rightly  and  wisely  foregone,,  because  they  had 
received  from  God  the  gift  and  grace  of  continence,  the  power  of  a  chaste 
life,  resulting  from  an  imagination  purified  and  ennobled  to  a  particular 
service. 

1  Consider  the  pernicious  influence  exercised  over  millions  of  Buddhists  to  this  day  by  Sakya  Mouni's 
exaltation  of  ascetic  celibacy! 

2  Matt.  xix.  10 — 12.  The  Rabbis  similarly  distinguished  between  three  sorts  of  tvvovxoi. — the  serts 
chammah  ("of  the  sun,"  or  "of  nature  "),  the  seris  adam  (per  homines),  and  the  seris  bidt  s)uxmayim  (of  God). 
The  passages  of  the  Rabbis,  quoted  by  Schottgen  in  loc,  show  that  the  metaphorical  sense  given  to  the 
third  class  is  justified,  and  that  the  Jews  applied  it  to  any  who  practiced  moderate  abstinence. 

3  It  is  well  known  that  Origen,  the  most  allegorizing  of  commentators,  unhappily  took  this  verse 
literally:  other  passages  of  Christ's  teaching  mighi  have  shown  him  that  such  an  offense  against  the  order 
and  constitution  of  Providence  was  no  protection  against  sensual  sin;  and  indeed  this  great  and  holy  man 
lived  to  see  and  to  confess  that  in  this  matter  he  had  been  nobly  mistaken— nobly,  because  the  error  of  the 
intellect  was  combined  with  the  most  fervid  impulses  of  a  self-sacrificing  heart. 


THE  LAST  STAY  IN  PER^A.  439 

And  then,  like  a  touching  and  beautiful  comment  on  these  high 
words,  and  the  strongest  of  all  proofs  that  there  was  in  the  mind  of 
Christ  no  admiration  for  the  "voluntary  service"  which  St.  Paul  con- 
demns, and  the  "works  of  supererogation"  which  an  erring  Church  up- 
holds— as  a  proof  of  His  belief  that  marriage  is  honorable  in  all,  and  the 
bed  undefiled — He  took  part  in  a  scene  that  has  touched  the  imagina- 
tion of  poet  and  painter  in  every  age.  For  as  though  to  destroy  all 
false  and  unnatural  notions  of  the  exceptional  glory  of  religious  virginity. 
He,  among  whose  earliest  acts  it  had  been  to  bless  a  marriage  festival, 
made  it  one  of  His  latest  acts  to  fondle  infants  in  His  arms.  It  seems 
to  have  been  known  in  Persea  that  the  time  of  His  departure  was  ap- 
proaching ;  and  conscious,  perhaps,  of  the  words  which  He  had  just  been 
uttering,  there  were  fathers  and  mothers  and  friends  who  brought  to  Him 
the  fruits  of  holy  wedlock — young  children  and  even  babes' — that  He 
might  touch  them  and  pray  over  them.  Ere  He  left  them  for  ever,  they 
would  bid  Him  a  solemn  farewell  ;  they  would  win,  as  it  were,  the  legacy 
of  His  special  blessing  for  the  generation  yet  to  come.  The  disciples 
thought  their  conduct  forward  and  ofificious.''  They  did  not  wish  their 
Master  to  be  needlessly  crowded  and  troubled  ;  they  did  not  like  to  be 
disturbed  in  their  high  colloquies.  They  were  indignant  that  a  number 
of  mere  women  and  children  should  come  obtruding  on  more  important 
persons  and  interests.  Women  were  not  honored,  nor  children  loved  in 
antiquity  as  now  they  are  ;  no  halo  of  romance  and  tenderness  encircled 
them  ;  too  often  they  were  subjected  to  shameful  cruelties  and  hard 
neglect.  But  He  who  came  to  be  the  friend  of  all  sinners,  and  the  helper 
of  all  the  suffering  and  the  sick,  came  also  to  elevate  woman  to  her  due 
honor,  centuries  before  the  Teutonic  element  of  modern  society  was 
dreamt  of,  and  to  be  the  protector  and  friend  of  helpless  infancy  and 
innocent  childhood.  Even  the  unconscious  little  ones  were  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  His  Church  by  His  sacrament  of  baptism,  to  be  made  mem- 
bers of  Him,  and  inheritors  of  His  kingdom.  He  turned  the  rebuke  of 
the  disciples  on  themselves;  He  was  as  much  displeased  with  them,  as 
they  had  been  with  the  parents  and  children.  "  Suffer  the  little  children," 
He  said,  in  words  which  each  of  the  Synoptists  has  preserved  for  us  in 
all  their  immortal  tenderness — "  Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto 
me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of    such  is  the  kingdom  of    heaven."      And 

1  Matt.  xix.  13. 

2  Comp.  the  haughty  repulsion  of  the  Shunamite  woman  by  Gehazi  (2  Kings  iv.  27). 


440  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

when  He  had  folded  them  in  His  arms,  laid  His  hands  upon  them,  and 
blessed  them,  He  added  once  more  His  constantly  needed,  and  therefore 
constantly  repeated,  warning,  "  Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  as  a  little  child,  shall  not  enter  therein."" 

When  this  beautiful  and  deeply  instructive  scene  was  over,  St. 
Matthew  tells  us  that  He  started  on  His  way,  probably  for  that  new 
journey  to  the  other  Bethany  of  which  we  shall  hear  in  the  next 
chapter ;  and  on  this  road  occurred  another  incident,  which  impressed 
itself  so  deeply  on  the  minds  of  the  spectators  that  it,  too,  has  been  re- 
corded by  the  Evangelists  in  a  triple  narrative. 

A  young  man  of  great  wealth  and  high  position  seems  suddenly  to 
have  been  seized  with  a  conviction  that  he  had  hitherto  neglected  an  in- 
valuable opportunity,  and  that  One  who  could  alone  explain  to  him  the 
true  meaning  and  mystery  of  life  was  already  on  his  way  to  depart  from 
among  them.  Determined,  therefore,  not  to  be  too  late,  he  came  running, 
breathless,  eager — in  a  way  that  surprised  all  who  beheld  it — and,  pros- 
trating himself  before  the  feet  of  Jesus,  exclaimed,  "  Good  Master,  what 
good  thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  life?" 

If  there  was  something  attractive  in  the  mingled  impetuosity  and 
humility  of  one  so  young  and  distinguished,  yet  so  candid  and  earnest, 
there  was  in  his  question  much  that  was  objectionable.  The  notion  that 
he  could  gain  eternal  life  by  "doing  some  good  thing,"  rested  on  a  basis 
radically  false.  If  we  may  combine  what  seems  to  be  the  true  reading 
of  St.  Matthew,  with  the  answer  recorded  in  the  other  Evangelists,  our 
Lord  seems  to  have  said  to  him,  "Why  askest  thou  me  about  the  good? 
and  why  callest  thou  me  good?  One  is  the  good,  even  God."  He  would 
as  little  accept  the  title  "Good,"  as  He  would  accept  the  title  "Messiah," 
when  given  in  a  false  sense.  He  would  not  be  accepted  as  that  mere 
"good  Rabbi,"  to  which,  in  these  days,  more  than  ever,  men  would  re- 
duce Him. 

So  far,  Jesus  would  show  the  youth  that  when  he  came  to  Him 
as  to  one  who  was  more  than  man,  his  entire  address,  as  well  as 
his  entire  question,  was  a  mistake.  No  mere  man  can  lay  any  other 
foundation  than  that  which  is  laid,  and  if  the  ruler  committed  the  error 
of  simply  admiring  Jesus  as  a  Rabbi  of  pre-eminent  sanctity,  yet  no 
Rabbi,  however  saintly,  was  accustomed  to  receive  the  title  of  "good," 
or  prescribe  any  amulet  for  the    preservation  of    a  virtuous  life.     And  in 

I  Comp.  Mark  ix.  35  ;  Luke  xxii.  26  ;  Matt.  xx.  26,  27  ;  xxiii.  11. 


THE  LAST  STAY  IN  PERiEA.  441 

the  same  spirit,  He  continued:  "But  if  thou  wilt  enter  into  life,  keep 
the  commandments." 

The  youth  had  not  expected  a  reply  so  obvious  and  so  simple.  He 
cannot  believe  that  he  is  merely  referred  to  the  Ten  Commandments, 
and  so  he  asks,  in  surprise,  "What  sort  of  commandments?"  Jesus,  as 
the  youth  wanted  to  do  something,  tells  him  merely  of  those  of  the 
Second  Table,  for,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  "Christ  sends  the  proud 
to  the  Law,  and  invites  the  humble  to  the  Gospel."  "  Master,"  replied  the 
young  man  in  surprise,  "  all  these  have  I  observed  from  my  youth." 
Doubtless  in  the  mere  letter  he  may  have  done  so,  as  millions  have  ;  but 
he  evidently  knew  little  of  all  that  those  commandments  had  been  inter- 
preted by  the  Christ  to  mean.  And  Jesus,  seeing  his  sincerity,  looking 
on  him  loved  him,  and  gave  him  one  short  crucial  test  of  his  real  con- 
dition. He  was  not  content  with  the  common-place  ;  he  aspired  after  the 
heroical,  or  rather  thotight  that  he  did ;  therefore  Jesus  gave  him  an 
heroic  act  to  do.  "One  thing,"  He  said,  "thou  lackest,"  and  bade  him 
go,  sell  all  that  he  had,  distribute  it  to  the  poor,  and  come  and  fol- 
low Him. 

It  was  too  much.  The  young  ruler  went  away  very  sorrowful,  grief 
in  his  heart,  and  a  cloud  upon  his  brow,  for  he  had  great  possessions. 
He  preferred  the  comforts  of  earth  to  the  treasures  of  heaven  ;  he  would 
not  purchase  the  things  of  eternity  by  abandoning  those  of  time  ;  he 
made,  as  Dante  calls  it,  "  the  great  refusal."  And  so  he  vanishes  from 
the  Gospel  history  ;  nor  do  the  Evangelists  know  anything  of  him  farther. 
But  the  sad  stern  imagination  of  the  poet  follows  him,  and  there,  among 
the  myriads  of  those  who  are  blown  about  like  autumn  leaves  on  the 
confines  of  the  other  world,  blindly  following  the  flutter  of  a  giddy  flag, 
rejected  by  Heaven,  despised  even  by  hell,  hateful  alike  to  God  and  to 
his  enemies,  he  sees 

"  I'ombra  di  colui 
Che  fece  per  viltate  il  gran  rifiuto," 

(The  shade  of  him,  who  made  through  cowardice  the  great  refusal.) 

We  may — I  had  almost  said  we  must — hope  and  believe  a  fairer 
ending  for  one  whom  Jesus,  as  He  looked  on  him,  could  love.  But  the 
failure  of  this  youth  to  meet  the  test  saddened  Jesus,  and  looking  round 
at  His  disciples,  He  said,  "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  The  words  once  more  struck  them  as 
very  severe.     Could  then  no  good    man    be    rich,  no  rich  man  be  good  ? 


442  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

But  Jesus  only  answered — softening  the  sadness  and  sternness  of  the 
words  by  the  affectionate  title  "  children  "— "  Children,  how  hard  it  is  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  ;" '  hard  for  aiiy  o?ie,  but,  He  added,  with  an 
earnest  look  at  His  disciples,  and  especially  addressing  Peter,  as  the  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews  tells  us,  "  It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  God."'  They  might  well  be  amazed  beyond  measure.  Was 
there  then  no  hope  for  a  Nicodemus,  for  a  Joseph  of  Arimathaea  ?  As- 
suredly there  was.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  about  riches  was  as  little 
Ebionite  as  His  teaching  about  marriage  was  Essene.  Things  impossi- 
ble to  nature  are  possible  to  grace  ;  things  impossible  to  man  are  easy 
to  God. 

Then,  with  a  touch — was  it  of  complacency,  or  was  it  of  despair? — 
Peter  said,  "  Lo,  we  have  forsaken  all,  and  followed  thee,"  and  either 
added,  or  implied.  In  what  respect,  then,  shall  we  te  gainers?  The 
answer  of  Jesus  was  at  once  a  magnificent  encouragement  and  a  solemn 
warning.  The  encouragement  was  that  there  was  no  instance  of  self- 
sacrifice  which  would  not  even  in  this  world,  and  even  in  the  midst  of 
persecutions,  receive  its  hundred-fold  increase  in  the  harvest  of  spiritual 
blessino-s,  and  would  in  the  world  to  come  be  rewarded  by  the  infinite 
recompense  of  eternal  life  ;  the  warning  was  that  familiar  one  which  they 
had  heard  before,  that  many  of  the  first  should  be  last,  and  the  last  first. 
And  to  impress  upon  them  still  more  fully  and  deeply  that  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  not  a  matter  of  mercenary  calculation  or  exact  equivalent — 
that  there  could  be  no  bargaining  with  the  Heavenly  Householder — that 
before  the  eye  of  God's  clearer  and  more  penetrating  judgment  Gentiles 
might  be  admitted  before  Jews,  and  Publicans  before  Pharisees,  and 
young  converts  before  aged  Apostles— He  told  them  the  memorable 
Parable  of  the  Laborers  in  the  Vineyard.  That  parable,  amid  its  other 
lessons,  involved  the  truth  that,  while  all  who  serve  God  should  not  be 
defrauded  of  their  just  and  full  and  rich  reward,  there  could  be  in  heaven 

1  It  will  be  seen  that  I  follow  the  very  striking  and  probably  genuine  reading  of  X,  B,  D,  and  other 
MSS.  in  Mark  x.  24.  The  words  rova  m-KoMrac  i-al  xp'll^ra,  which  our  version  accepts,  have  all  the 
character  of  a  gloss  ;  and  for  those  who  "  trust  in  riches  "  the  task  would  not  be  iiiaKoXov,  but  adiivarov.  It 
is  of  course  true  that  it  is  the  /rust  in  riches,  not  ihe /lossfssim  of  them,  which  makes  it  so  hard  to  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  ;  but  even  such  a  mean  and  miserable  scoffer  as  Lucian  could  see  that  there  is  always 
a  tiatiger  lest  those  who  /lazte  riches  should  trust  in  them. 

2  The  alteration  to  Ka/iO.ov,  "  a  rope,"  is  shown  to  be  wrong  from  the  commonness  of  similar  proverbs 
(<-.^.,  an  elephant  and  the  eye  of  a  needle)  in  the  Talmud,  as  adduced  by  Lightfoot,  Schottgen,  and  Wetstein. 
The  explanation  that  the  small  side  gate  of  a  city,  through  which  a  laden  camel  could  only  crush  with  the 
utmost  difficulty,  was  called  a  "  needle's  eye  '■  is  more  plausible,  but  seems  to  need  confirmation. 


THE  LAST  STAY  IN  PER^A.  443 

no  murmuring,  no  envyings,  no  jealous  comparison  of  respective  merits, 
no  base  strugglings  for  precedency,  no  miserable  disputings  as  to  who 
had  performed  the  maximum  of  service,  or  who  had  received  the  minimum 
of  grace. 


CHAPTER     XLVII. 


THE    RAISING   OF    LAZARUS. 


W^>€i 


"  I  have  the  keys  of  hell  and  of  death.' 


-Apoc.  i.  1 8. 


6, 


HESE  farewell  interviews  and  teachings  perhaps 
belong  to  the  two  days  after  Jesus — while  still 
in  the  Persean  Bethany — had  received  from  the 
other  Bethany,  where  He  had  so  often  found  a 
home,  the  solemn  message  that  "  he  whom  He 
loved  was  sick."  '  Lazarus  was  the  one  intimate 
personal  friend  whom  Jesus  possessed  outside 
the  circle  of  His  Apostles,  and  the  urgent  mes- 
sage was  evidently  an  appeal  for  the  presence 
of  Him  in  whose  presence,  so  far  as  we  know, 
there  had  never  been  a  death-bed  scene. 
But  Jesus  did  not  come.  He  contented  Himself — occu- 
pied as  He  was  in  important  works — with  sending  them 
the  message  that  "  this  sickness  was  not  to  death,  but  for 
the  glory  of  God,"  and  stayed  two  days  longer  where  He 
was.  And  at  the  end  of  those  two  days  He  said  to  His  disciples,  "  Let  us 
go  into  Judea  again."  The  disciples  reminded  Him  how  lately  the  Jews 
had  there  sought  to  stone  Him,  and  asked  Him  how  He  could  venture 
to  go  there  ao-ain  ;  but  His  answer  was  that  during  the  twelve  hours  of 
His  day  of  work  He  could  walk  in  safety,  for  the  light  of  His  duty, 
which  was  the  will  of  His  Heavenly  Father,  would  keep  Him  from 
danger.  And  then  He  told  them  that  Lazarus  slept,  and  that  He  was 
going  to  wake  him  out  of  sleep.  Three  of  them  at  least  must  have  re- 
membered how,  on  another  memorable  occasion,  He  had  spoken  of  death 
as  sleep ;  but  either  they  were  silent,  and  others  spoke,  or  they  were  too 
slow  of    heart  to  remember  it.      As    they  understood    Him    to    speak    of 

I  John  xi.  I — 46,  "  whom  thou  lovest,"  ver.  3.  The  same  word  is  only  used  elsewhere  of  the  love  of 
Jesus  for  the  beloved  disciple.  Where  His  love  for  the  sisters  is  spoken  of,  "cared  for"  is  used  (ver.  5). 
It  is,  however,  worth  noticing  that  three  times  out  of  four  the  word  for  even  the  beloved  disciple  is  "  to 
esteem,"  and  that  here  "thou  lovest  "  is  not  the  Evangelist's  own  word,  but  put  by  him  into  the  mouth 
of  another. 


THE  RAISING  OF  LAZARUS.  445 

natural  sleep,  He  had  to  tell  them  plainly  that  Lazarus  was  dead,  and 
that  He  was  glad  of  it  for  their  sakes,  for  that  He  would  go  to  restore 
him  to  life.  "  Let  us  also  go,"  said  the  affectionate  but  ever  despondent 
Thomas,  "that  we  may  die  with  Him" — as  though  he  had  said,  "It  is 
all  a  useless  and  perilous  scheme,  but  still  let  us  go." 

Starting  early  in  the  morning,  Jesus  could  easily  have  accomplished 
the  distance — some  twenty  miles — before  sunset.  But,  on  His  arrival.  He 
stayed  outside  the  little  village.  Its  vicinity  to  Jerusalem,  from  which  it 
is  not  two  miles  distant,'  and  the  evident  wealth  and  position  of  the 
family,  had  attracted  a  large  concourse  of  distinguished  Jews  to  console 
and  mourn  with  the  sisters  ;  and  it  was  obviously  desirable  to  act  with 
caution  in  venturing  among  such  determined  enemies.  But  while  Mary, 
true  to  'her  retiring  and  contemplative  disposition,  was  sitting  in  the 
house,  unconscious  of  her  Lord's  approach,^  the  more  active  Martha  had 
received  intelligence  that  He  was  near  at  hand,  and  immediately  went 
forth  to  meet  Him.  Lazarus  had  died  on  the  very  day  that  Jesus  re- 
ceived the  message  of  his  illness  ;  two  days  had  elapsed  while  He  lingered 
in  Peraea,  a  fourth  had  been  spent  on  the  journey.  Martha  could  not 
understand  this  sad  delay.  "  Lord,"  she  said,  in  tones  gently  reproachful, 
"  if  Thou  hadst  been  here  my  brother  had  not  died,"  yet  "  even  now " 
she  seems  to  indulge  the  vague  hope  that  some  alleviation  may  be  vouch- 
safed to  their  bereavement.  The  few  words  which  follow  are  words  of 
most  memorable  import — a  declaration  of  Jesus  which  has  brought  com- 
fort not  to  Martha  only,  but  to  millions  since,  and  which  shall  do  to  mill- 
ions more  unto  the  world's  end — 

"Thy  brother   shall  rise  again." 

Martha  evidently  had  not  dreamt  that  he  would  now  be  awaked 
from  the  sleep  of  death,  and  she  could  only  answer,  "  I  know  that  he 
shall  rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day." 

"  Jesus  said  unto  her,   "  I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life  :  he 

THAT  BELIEVETH  ON  Me,  THOUGH  HE  HAVE  DIED,  SHALL  LIVE  ;  AND  HE 
THAT    LIVETH    AND    BELIEVETH     ON      Me      SHALL      NEVER     DIE.        Believest    thoU 

this  ?" 

1  The  "  was"  in  John  xi.  iS  does  not  tiecessarily  imply  that  when  St.  John  wrote  the  village  had  been 
destroyed  ;  but  such  was  probably  the  case. 

2  It  is  an  interesting  incidental  proof  of  the  authenticity  of  the  narrative — all  the  more  valuable  from 
being  wholly  undesigned — that  the  characters  of  Martha  and  Mary,  as  described  in  a  few  touches  by  St. 
John,  exactly  harmonize  with  their  character  as  they  appear  in  the  anecdote  preserved  only  by  St.  Luke 
(x.  38 — 42).  Those  who  reject  the  genuineness  of  St.  John's  Gospel  must  account  (as  Meyer  says)  lor  the 
"  literary  miracle.' 


446  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

It  was  not  for  a  spirit  like  Martha's  to  distinguish  the  interchanging 
thoughts  of  physical  and  spiritual  death  which  were  united  in  that  deep 
utterance  ;  but,  without  pausing  to  fathom  it,  her  faithful  love  supplied 
the  answer,  "♦Yea,  Lord,  I  believe  that  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  which  should  come  into  the  world." 

Having  uttered  that  great  confession,  she  at  once  went  in  quest  of 
her  sister,  about  whom  Jesus  had  already  inquired,  and  whose  heart  and 
intellect,  as  Martha  seemed  instinctively  to  feel,  were  better  adapted  to 
embrace  such  lofty  truths.  She  found  Mary  in  the  house,  and  both  the 
secrecy  with  which  she  delivered  her  message,  and  the  haste  and  silence 
with  which  Mary  arose  to  go  and  meet  her  Lord,  show  that  precaution 
was  needed,  and  that  the  visit  of  Jesus  had  not  been  unaccompanied 
with  danger.  The  Jews  who  were  comforting  her,  and  whom  she  had 
thus  suddenly  left,  rose  to  follow  her  to  the  tomb,  whither  they  thought 
that  she  had  gone  to  weep  ;  but  they  soon  saw  the  real  object  of  her 
movement.  Outside  the  village  they  found  Jesus  surrounded  by  His 
friends,  and  they  saw  Mary  hurry  up  to  Him,  and  fling  herself  at  His 
feet  with  the  same  agonizing  reproach  which  her  sister  also  had  used, 
"  Lord,  if  Thou  hadst  been  here  my  brother  had  not  died."  The  greater 
intensity  of  her  emotion  spoke  in  her  fewer  words  and  her  greater  self- 
abandonment  of  anguish,  and  she  could  add  no  more.  It  may  be  that 
her  affection  was  too  deep  to  permit  her  hope  to  be  so  sanguine  as 
that  of  her  sister  ;  it  may  be  that  with  humbler  reverence  she  left  all  to 
her  Lord. 

The  sight  of  all  that  love  and  misery,  the  pitiable  spectacle  of 
human  bereavement,  the  utter  futility  at  such  a  moment  of  human  con- 
solation, the  shrill  commingling  of  a  hired  and  simulated  lamentation 
with  all  this  genuine  anguish,  the  unspoken  reproach,  "  Oh,  why  didst 
Thou  not  come  at  once  and  snatch  the  victim  from  the  enemy,  and  spare 
Thy  friend  from  the  sting  of  death,  and  us  from  the  more  bitter  sting  of 
such  a  parting?" — all  these  influences  touched  the  tender  compassion  of 
Jesus  with  deep  emotion.  A  strong  effort  of  self-repression  was  needed — [ 
an  effort  which  shook  His  whole  frame  with  a  powerful  shudder' — before  I 
He  could  find  words  to  speak,  and  then  He  'ould  merely  ask,  "  Where 
have  ye  laid  him?"     They  said,   "  Lord,  come  and  see."     As  He  followed 

I  "  Troubled  Himself."  The  philosophical  fancies  which  see  in  this  expression  a  sanction  of  the  Stoic 
fterpunrddtia,  '  moderate  emotion,"  as  though  the  meaning  were  that  Jesus  merely  stirred  His  own 
emotions  to  the  exact  extent  which  He  approved,  are  quite  misplaced.  (Comp.  John  xii.  27  ;  xiii.  21.) 
Euthymius,  an  excellent  ancient  commentator,  explains  it  as  in  the  text. 


THE  RAISING  OF  LAZARUS.  447 

them  His  eyes  were  streaming  with  silent  tears.'  His  tears  were  not 
unnoticed,  and  while  some  of  the  Jews  observed  with  respectful  sympathy 
this  proof  of  His  affection  for  the  dead,  others  were  asking  dubiously, 
perhaps  almost  sneeringly,  whether  He  who  had  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  could  not  have  saved  His  friend  from  death  ?  They  had  not  heard 
how,  in  the  far-off  village  of  Galilee,  He  had  raised  the- dead;  but  they 
knew  that  in  Jerusalem  He  had  opened  the  eyes  of  one  born  blind, 
and  that  seemed  to  them  a  miracle  no  less  stupendous.  But  Jesus 
knew  and  heard  their  comments,  and  once  more  the  whole  scene — its 
genuine  sorrows,  its  hired  mourners,  its  uncalmed  hatreds,  all  concen- 
trated around  the  ghastly  work  of  death — came  so  powerfully  over 
His  spirit,  that,  though  He  knew  that  He  was  going  to  wake  the 
dead,  once  more  His  whole  being  was  swept  by  a  storm  of  emotion.' 
The  grave,  like  most  of  the  graves  belonging  to  the  wealthier  Jews, 
was  a  recess  carved  horizontally  in  the  rock,  with  a  slab  or  mass  of 
stone  to  close  the  entrance.^  Jesus  bade  them  remove  this  golal,  as  it 
was  called.  Then  Martha  interposed^ — partly  from  conviction  that  the 
soul  had  now  utterly  departed  from  the  vicinity  of  the  moldering  body, 
partly  afraid  in  her  natural  delicacy  of  the  shocking  spectacle  which  the 
removal  of  that  stone  would  reveal.  For  in  that  hot  climate  it  is  neces- 
sary that  burial  should  follow  immediately  upon  death,*  and  as  it  was  the 
evening  of  the  fourth  day  since  Lazarus  had  died,  there  was  too  much 
reason  to  fear  that  by  this  time  decomposition  had  set  in.  Solemnly 
Jesus  reminded  her  of  His  promise,  and  the  stone  was  moved  from  the 
place  where  the  dead  was  laid.  He  stood  at  the  entrance,  and  all  others 
shrank  a  little  backward,  with  their  eyes  still  fixed  on  that  dark  and 
silent  cave.  A  hush  fell  upon  them  all  as  Jesus  raised  His  eyes  and 
thanked  God  for  the  coming  confirmation  of  His  prayer.  And  then, 
raising  to  its  clearest  tones  that  voice  of  awful  and  sonorous  authority, 
and  uttering,  as  was  usual  with  Him  on  such  occasions,  the  briefest 
words.   He  cried,    "Lazarus,  come  forth!"     Those   words   thrilled   once 

1  "  He  shed  tears  ;"  not,  "  He  wept  aloud,"  as  over  Jerusalem  (Luke  xix.  41). 

2  John  xi.  38. 

3  The  village  of  Bethany  is  to  this  day  called  El-Azariyeh,  a  corruption  of  Lazarus,  and  a  continuous 
memorial  of  the  miracle.  A  deep  cavity  is  shown  in  the  middle  of  it  as  the  grave  of  Lazarus.  That 
El-Azariyeh  is  the  ancient  Bethany  is  certain,  but  the  tomb  of  Lazarus  could  not  have  been  in  the  center 
of  it. 

4  Frankl  mentions  that,  a  few  years  ago,  a  Jewish  Rabbi  dying  at  Jerusalem  at  two  o'clock  was  buried 
at  4.30.  The  emphatic  remark  of  Martha  may  also  have  arisen  from  the  belief  that  after  three  days  the 
soul  ceased  to  flutter  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  body. 


448  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

more  through  that  region  of  impenetrable  darkness  which  separates  us 
from  the  world  to  come  ;  and  scarcely  were  they  spoken  when,  like  a 
specter,  from  the  rocky  tomb  issued  a  figure,  swathed  indeed  in  its  white 
and  ghastly  cerements — with  the  napkin  round  the  head  which  had  up- 
held the  jaw  that  four  days  previously  had  dropped  in  death,  bound 
hand  and  foot  and  face,  but  not  livid,  not  horrible — the  figure  of  a  youth 
with  the  healthy  blood  of  a  restored  life  flowing  through  his  veins  ;  of  a 
life  restored — so  tradition  tells  us— for  thirty  more  long  years  to  life,  and 
light,  and  love. 

Let  us  pause  here  to  answer  the  not  unnatural  question  as  to  the 
silence  of  the  Synoptists  respecting  this  great  miracle.  To  treat  the  sub- 
ject fully  would  indeed  be  to  write  a  long  disquisition  on  the  structure 
of  ^e  Gospels;  and  after  all  we  could  assign  no  final  e.xplanation  of 
their  obvious  difficulties.  The  Gospels  are,  of  their  very  nature,  con- 
fessedly and  designedly  fragmentary,  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  all  but 
certain  that  the  first  three  were  mainly  derived  from  a  common  oral 
tradition,  or  founded  on  one  or  two  original,  and  themselves  fragmentary, 
documents.'  The  Synoptists  almost  confine  themselves  to  the  Galilean, 
and  St.  John  to  the  Judean  ministry,  though  the  Synoptists  distinctly 
allude  to  and  presuppose  the  ministry  in  Jerusalem,  and  St.  John  the 
ministry  in  Galilee.^  Not  one  of  the  four  Evangelists  proposes  for  a 
moment  to  give  an  exhaustive  account,  or  even  catalogue,  of  the  parables, 
discourses,  and  miracles  of  Jesus;  nor  was  it  the  object  of  either  of  them 
to  write  a  complete  narrative  of  His  three  and  a  half  years  of  public 
life.  Each  of  them  relates  th*e  incidents  which  came  most  immediately 
within  his  own  scope,  and  were  best  known  to  him  either  by  personal 
witness,  by  isolated  written  documents,  or  by  oral  tradition  ;  and  each  of 
them  tells  enough  to  show  that  He  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Liv- 
ing God,  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Now,  since  the  raising  of  Lazarus 
would  not  seem  to  them  a  greater  exercise  of  miraculous  power  than 
others  which  they  had  recorded  (John  xi.  37)— since,  as  has  well  been 
said,  no  semeiometer  had  been  then  invented  to  test  the  relative  greatness 

1  Luke  i.  I. 

2  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  have  explained  the  word  Synoptists  before.  It  is  applied  to  the  first  three  Evan- 
gelists, because  their  Gospels  can  be  arranged,  section  by  section,  in  a  tabular  form.  Griesbach  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  to  use  the  word.  But  although  the  word,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  is  modern,  the  con- 
trasts presented  by  the  first  three  and  the  fourth  Gospels  were,  of  course,  very  early  observed.  Professor 
Westcott  treats  of  •'  the  origin  of  the  Gospels"  with  his  usual  learning  and  candor  in  his  Introduction,  pp. 
152—195.  He  there  mentions  that  if  the  total  contents  of  the  Gospels  be  represented  by  lOO.  there  are  7 
peculiarities  in  St.  Mark,  42  in  St.  Matthew,  59  in  St.  Luke,  and  92  in  St.  John. 


inilfllllKlMfilllKi'.M.'IIITIimillwiiii 


THE  RAISING  OF  LAZARUS.  449 

of  miracles — and  since  this  miracle  fell  within  the  Judean  cycle — it  does 
not  seem  at  all  more  inexplicable  that  they  should  have  omitted  this, 
than  that  they  should  have  omitted  the  miracle  at  Bethesda,  or  the  open- 
ing of  the  eyes  of  him  who  had  been  born  blind.  But  further  than  this, 
we  seem  to  trace  in  the  Synoptists  a  special  reticence  about  the  family 
at  Bethany.  The  house  in  which  they  take  a  prominent  position  is  called 
"the  house  of  Simon  the  leper;"  Mary  is  called  simply  "a  woman"  by 
St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  (Matt.  xxvi.  6,  7  ;  Mark  xiv.  3)  ;  and  St.  Luke 
contents  himself  with  calling  Bethany  "a  certain  village"  (Luke  x.  38), 
although  he  was  perfectly  aware  of  the  name  (Luke  xix.  29).  There  is, 
therefore,  a  distinct  argument  for  the  conjecture  that  when  the  earliest 
form  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew  appeared,  and  when  the  memorials 
were  collected  which  were  used  by  the  other  two  Synoptists,  there  may 
have  been  special  reasons  for  not  recording  a  miracle  which  would  have 
brought  into  dangerous  prominence  a  man  who  was  still  living,  but  of 
whom  the  Jews  had  distinctly  sought  to  get  rid  as  a  witness  of  Christ's 
wonder-working  power  (John  xii.  10).  Even  if  this  danger  had  ceased, 
it  would  have  been  obviously  repulsive  to  the  quiet  family  of  Bethany  to 
have  been  made  the  focus  of  an  intense  and  irreverent  curiosity,  and  to 
be  questioned  about  those  hidden  things  which  none  have  ever  revealed. 
Something,  then,  seems  to  have  "  sealed  the  lips  "  of  those  Evangelists — 
an  obstacle  which  had  been  long  removed  when  St.  John's  Gospel  first 
saw  the  light. 

"If  they  believe  not  Moses  and  the  Prophets" — so  ran  the  answer 
of  Abraham  to  Dives  in  the  parable — "  neither  will  they  be  converted 
though  one  (and  this,  too,  a  Lazarus  !)  rose  from  the  dead."  It  was  even 
so.  There  were  many  witnesses  of  this  miracle  who  believed  when  they 
saw  it,  but  there  were  others  who  could  only  carry  an  angry  and  alarmed 
account  of  it  to  the  Sanhedrin  at  Jerusalem. 

The  Sanhedrin  met  in  a  spirit  of  hatred  and  perplexity.'  They  could 
not  deny  the  miracle;  they  would  not  believe  on  Him  who  had  performed 
it  ;  they  could  only  dread  His  growing  influence,  and  conjecture  that  it 
would  be  used  to  make  Himself  a  king,  and  so  end  in  Roman  interven- 
tion and'  the  annihilation  of  their  political  existence.  And  as  they  vainly 
raged  in  impotent  counsels,  Joseph  Caiaphas  arose  to  address  them.  He 
was  the  civil  High  Priest,  and  held  the  office  eleven  years,  from  A.D.  25, 
when  Valerius  Gratus  placed  him  in  it,  till  A.D.   36,  when  Vitellius  <""-ned 

I  John  xi.  47 — 54. 
•29 


450  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

him  out.  A  large  share  indeed  of  the  honor  which  belonged  to  his 
position  had  been  transferred  to  Ananus,  Annas — or  to  give  him  his  true 
Jewish  name,  Hanan — who  had  simply  been  deprived  of  the  High  Priest- 
hood by  Roman  authority,  and  who  (as  we  shall  see  hereafter)  was 
perhaps  the  Nasi  or  Sagan,  and  was,  at  any  rate,  regarded  as  being  the 
real  High  Priest  by  the  stricter  Jews.  Caiaphas,  however,  was  at  this 
time  nominally  and  ostensibly  High  Priest."  As  such  he  was  supposed 
to  have  that  gift  of  prophecy  which  was  still  believed  to  linger  faintly 
in  the  persons  of  the  descendants  of  Aaron,  after  the  total  disappearance 
of  dreams,  Urim,  omens,  prophets,  and  Bath  Kdl,  which,  in  descending 
degrees,  had  been  the  ordinary  means  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  God. 
And  thus  when  Caiaphas  rose,  and  with  shameless  avowal  of  a  policy 
most  flagitiously  selfish  and  unjust,"  haughtily  told  the  Sanhedrin  that  all 
their  proposals  were  mere  ignorance,  and  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done 
was  to  sacrifice  one  victim — -innocent  or  guilty  he  did  not  stop  to  inquire 
or  to  define — one  victim  for  the  whole  people — ay,  and,  St.  John  adds, 
not  for  that  nation  only,  but  for  all  God's  children  scattered  throughout 
the  world — they  accepted  unhesitatingly  that  voice  of  unconscious 
prophecy.  And  by  accepting  it  they  filled  to  the  brim  the  cup  of  their 
iniquity,  and  incurred  the  crime  which  drew  upon  their  guilty  heads  the 
very  catastrophe  which  it  was  committed  to  avert.  It  was  this  Moloch 
worship  of  worse  than  human  sacrifice  which,  as  in  the  days  of  Manasseh, 
doomed  them  to  a  second  and  a  more  terrible,  and  a  more  enduring, 
destruction.  There  were  some,  indeed,  who  were  not  to  be  found  on 
that  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel,^  or  who,  if  present,  consented  not  to  the 
counsel  or  will  of  them  ;  but  from  that  day  forth  the  secret  fiat  had  been 
issued  that  Jesus  must  be  put  to  death.  Henceforth  He  was  living  with 
a  price  upon   His  head. 

And    that    fiat,    however    originally    secret,    became    instantly  known. 
Jesus  was  not  ignorant  of  it;    and  for  the  last  few  weeks  of  His  earthly 

1  Some  have  seen  an  open  irony  in  the  expression  of  St.  John  (xi.  49),  that  Caiaphas  was  High  Priest 
"that  same  year,"  as  though  the  Jews  had  got  into  this  contemptuous  way  of  speaking  during  the  rapid 
succession  of  priests — mere  phantoms  set  up  and  displaced  by  the  Roman  fiat — who  had  in  recent  years 
succeeded  each  other.  There  must  have  been  at  least  five  living  High  Priests  and  ex-High  Priests  at  this 
council — Annas,  Ismael  Ben  Phabi,  Eleazer  Ben  Hanan,  Simon  Ben  Kamhith,  and  Caiaphas,  who  had 
gained  his  elevation  by  bribery. 

2  Some  of  these  conspirators  must  have  lived  to  learn  by  the  result  that  what  is  morally  wrong  never 
can  be  politically  expedient.  The  death  of  the  Innocent,  so  far  from  saving  the  nation,  precipitated  its 
ruin,  and  that  ruin  fell  most  heavily  on  those  who  had  brought  it  about. 

3  This  is  the  name  still  given  to  the  traditional  site  of  the  house  of  Caiaphas,  where  the  meeting  is 
supposed  to  have  been  held. 


THE  RAISING  OF  LAZARUS.  451 

existence,  till  the  due  time  had  brought  round  the  Passover  at  which  He 
meant  to  lay  down  His  life,  He  retired  in  secret  to  a  little  obscure  city, 
near  the  wilderness,  called  Ephraim."  There,  safe  from  all  the  tumults 
and  machinations  of  His  deadly  enemies.  He  spent  calmly  and  happily 
those  last  few  weeks  of  rest,  surrounded  only  by  His  disciples,  and  train- 
ing them,  in  that  peaceful  seclusion,  for  the  mighty  work  of  thrusting  their 
sickles  into  the  ripening  harvests  of  the  world.  None,  or  few  beside  that 
faithful  band,  knew  of  His  hiding-place;  for  the  Pharisees,  when  they 
found  themselves  unable  to  conceal  their  designs,  had  published  an  order 
that  if  any  man  knew  where  He  was,  he  was  to  reveal  it,  that  they  might 
seize  Him,  if  necessary  even  by  violence,  and  execute  the  dicision  at  which 
they  had  arrived.     But,  as  yet,  the  bribe  had  no  effect. 

How  long  this  deep  and  much-imperiled  retirement  lasted  we  are  not 
told,  nor  can  we  lift  the  veil  of  silence  that  has  fallen  over  its  records. 
If  the  decision  at  which  the  Beth  Din  in  the  house  of  Caiaphas  had  ar- 
rived was  regarded  as  a  formal  sentence  of  death,  then  it  is  not  impossible 
that  these  scrupulous  legists  may  have  suffered  forty  days  to  elapse  for 
the  production  of  witnesses  in  favor  of  the  accused.'  But  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  the  destruction  intended  for  Jesus  was  not  meant  to  be  carried 
out  in  a  manner  more  secret  and  more  summary,  bearing  the  aspect  rather 
of  a  violent  assassination  than  of  a  legal  judgment. 

1  There  is  much  uncertainty  as  to  the  position  of  Ephraim  ;  it  may  possibly  have  been  on  the  site  of 
the  modern  village  of  Et-Taiyibeh,  which  is  near  to  the  wilderness  (John  xi.  54),  and  not  far  from  Beitin,  the 
ancient  Bethel  (2  Chron.  xiii.  19  ;  Jos.  B.J.  iv.  9,  §  9),  and  about  twenty  miles  to  the  north  of  Jerusalem. 
There  is  no  necessity  to  suppose  with  Ebrard  that  it  was  south-east  of  Jerusalem. 

2  Such  is  the  supposition  of  Sepp,  and  it  derives  some  support  from  the  turbid  legend  of  the  Talmud, 
which  says  that  forty  days  before  His  death  (the  legal  time  for  the  production  of  witnesses)  Jesus  was  ex- 
communicated by  Josbaa  Ben  Perachiah,  to  the  blast  of  400  trumpets. 


CHAPTER    XLVIII. 


JERICHO    AND    BETHANY. 


Those  mighty  voices  three — Jesus,  have  mercy  on  me — Be  of  good  comfort,  rise.  He  calleth  th»« — Thy 
faith  hath  saved  thee." — Longfellow. 

ROM  the  conical  hill  of  Ephraim,  Jesus  could 
see  the  pilgrim  bands  as,  at  the  approach  of  the 
Passover,  they  began  to  stream  down  the  Jordan 
valley  towards  Jerusalem,  to  purify  themselves 
from  every  ceremonial  defilement  before  the 
commencement  of  the  Great  Feast.'  The  time 
had  come  for  Him  to  leave  His  hiding-place, 
and  He  descended  from  Ephraim  to  the  high 
road  in  order  to  join  the  great  caravan  of  Gali- 
lean pilgrims.' 

And  as  He  turned    His    back    on  the  little 
}      '  town,  and  began  the  journey  which  was  to  end 

*'  ,,  at    Jerusalem,   a    prophetic    solemryty  and  eleva- 

'^^  ^'°  tion  of  soul  struggling  with  the  natural  anguish 

of  the  flesh,  which  shrank  from  that  great  sacrifice,  pervaded  His  whole 
being,  and  gave  a  new  and  strange  grandeur  to  every  gesture  and  every 
look.  It  was  the  Transfiguration  of  Self-sacrifice;  and,  like  that  previous 
Transfiguration  of  Glory,  it  filled  those  who  beheld  it  with  an  amaze- 
ment and  terror  which  they  could  not  explain. ^  There  are  few  pictures 
in  the  Gospel  more  pathetic  than  this  of  Jesus  going  forth  to  His  death, 
and  walking  alone  along  the  path  into  the  deep  valley,  while  behind  Him, 
in  awful  reverence,  and  mingled  anticipations  of  dread  and  hope — their 
eyes  fixed  on  Him,  as  with  bowed  head  He  preceded  them  in  all  the 
majesty  of  sorrow — the  disciples  followed,  and  dared  not  disturb  His 
meditations.      But  at  last  He  paused  and   beckoned    them    to    Him,    and 

1  Numb.  ix.  to;  2  Chron.  xxx.  17. 

2  Matt.  XX.  17 — 19;  Mark  x.  32 — 34  ;  Luke  xviii.  31 — 34. 

3  Mark  x.  32. 

45* 


JERICHO  AND  BETHANY.  453 

then,  once  more — for  the  third  time — with  fuller,  clearer,  more  startling, 
more  terrible  particulars  than  ever  before,  He  told  them  that  He  should 
be  betrayed  to  the  Priests  and  Scribes  ;  by  them  condemned  ;  then  handed 
over  to  the  Gentiles  ;  by  the  Gentiles  mocked,  scourged,  and — He  now 
for  the  first  time  revealed  to  them,  without  any  ambiguity,  the  crowning 
horror — crticified ;  and  that,  on  the  third  day.  He  should  rise  again.  But 
their  minds  were  full  of  Messianic  hopes  ;  they  were  so  preoccupied  with 
the  conviction  that  now  the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  come  in  all  its 
splendor,  that  the  prophecy  passed  by  them  like  the  idle  wind  ;  they  could 
not,  and  would  not,  understand. 

There  can  be  no  more  striking  comment  on  their  inability  to  realize 
the  meaning  of  what  Jesus  had  said  to  them,  than  the  fact  that  very 
shortly  after,  and  during  the  same  journey,  occurred  the  ill-timed  and 
strangely  unspiritual  request  which  the  Evangelists  proceed  to  record.' 
With  an  air  of  privacy  and  mystery,  Salome,  one  of  the  constant  attend- 
ants of  Jesus,  with  her  two  sons,  James  and  John,  who  were  among  the 
most  eminent  of  His  Apostles,  came  to  Him  with  adorations,  and  begged 
Him  to  promise  them  a  favor.  He  asked  what  they  wished;  and  then  the 
mother,  speaking  for  her  fervent-hearted  ambitious  sons,  begged  that  in 
His  kingdom  they  might  sit,  the  one  at  His  right  hand,  and  the  other 
at  His  left.  Jesus  bore  gently  with  their  selfishness  and  error.  They 
had  asked  in  their  blindness  for  that  position  which,  but  a  few  days  after- 
wards, they  were  to  see  occupied  in  shame  and  anguish  by  the  two  cruci- 
fied robbers.  Their  imaginations  were  haunted  by  twelve  thrones;  His 
thoughts  were  of  three  crosses.  They  dreamt  of  earthly  crowns  ;  He  told 
them  of  a  cup  of  bitterness^  and  a  baptism  of  blood.  Could  they  indeed 
drink  with  Him  of  that  cup,  and  be  baptized  with  that  baptism?  Under- 
standing perhaps  more  of  His  meaning  now,  they  yet  boldly  answered, 
"We  can;"  and  then  He  told  them  that  they  indeed  should  do  so,  but 
that  to  sit  on  His  right  hand  and  on  His  left  was  reserved  for  those  for 
whom  it  had  been  prepared  by  His  Heavenly  Father.^  The  throne,  says 
Basil,  "is  the  price  of  toils,  not  a  grace  granted  to  ambition;  a  reward  of 
righteousness,  not  the  concession  of  a  request." 

The  ten,  when  they  heard  the    incident,  were    naturally  indignant  at 

.  I  Matt.  XX.  20 — 28;  Mark  x.  35 — 45  ;  Luke  xviii.  32 — 34. 

2  John  xviii.  11  ;  Rev.  xiv.  10  ;  Ps.  Ixxv.  8. 

3  The  English  version  is  here  not  very  happy  in  interpolating  "it  shall  be  given"  (Matt.  xx.  23),  for 
the  meaning  is  "  not  Mine  to  give  except  to  those  for  whom  it  is  prepared  of  My  Father."  Comp.  Matt,  xxv 
34  ;  Tim.  iv.  8. 


454  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

this  secret  attempt  of  the  two  brothers  to  secure  for  themselves  a  pre- 
eminence of  honor ;  little  knowing  that,  so  far  as  earth  was  concerned — 
and  of  this  alone  they  dreamt— that  premium  of  honor  should  only  be, 
for  the  one  a  precedence  in  martyrdom,  for  the  other  a  prolongation  of 
suffering.'  This  would  be  revealed  to  them  in  due  time,  but  even  now 
Jesus  called  them  all  together,  and  taught  them,  as  He  had  so  often 
taught  them,^  that  the  highest  honor  is  won  by  the  deepest  humility. 
The  shadowy  principalities  of  earth  ^  were  characterized  by  the  semblance 
of  a  little  brief  authority  over  their  fellow-men  ;  it  was  natural  for  them 
to  lord  it  and  tyrannize  it  over  their  fellows :  but  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  the  lord  of  all  should  be  the  servant  of  all,  even  as  the  highest 
Lord  had  spent  His  very  life  in  the  lowest  ministrations,  and  was  about 
to  give  it  as  a  ransom  for  many. 

As  they  advanced  towards  Jericho,*  through  the  scorched  and  tree- 
less Ghor,  the  crowd  of  attendant  pilgrims  grew  more  and  more  dense 
about  Him.  It  was  either  the  evening  of  Thursday,  Nisan  7,  or  the 
morning  of  Friday,  Nisan  8,  when  they  reached  the  environs  of  that 
famous  city — the  city  of  fragrance,  the  city  of  flowers,  the  city  of  palm- 
trees,  the  "  paradise  of  God."  It  is  now  a  miserable  and  degraded  Arab 
village,  but  was  then  a  prosperous  and  populous  town,  standing  on  a 
green  and  flowery  oasis,  rich  in  honey  and  leaf-honey,  and  myrobalanum, 
and  well  watered  by  the  Fountain  of  Elisha  and  by  other  abundant 
springs.  Somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  the  town  sat  blind  Bartimaeus, 
the  son  of  Timaeus,  begging  with  a  companion  of  his  misery ;  and  as 
they  heard  the  noise  of  the  passing  multitude,  and  were  told  that  it  was 

1  Acts  xii.  2  ;  Rev.  i.  9. 

2  Matt,  xviii.  4;  xxiii.  11. 

3  Mark  x.  42  ;   I  Pet.  v.  3. 

4  Matt.  XX.  30 — 34  ;  Mark  x.  46^52  ;  Luke  xviii.  35 — 43.  Those  who  have  a  narrow,  timid,  super- 
stitious, and  unscriptural  view  of  inspiration  may  well  be  troubled  by  the  obvious  discrepancies  between 
the  Evangelists  in  this  narrative.  Not  only  does  St.  Matthew  mention  two  blind  men,  while  the  others  only 
mention  one,  but  St.  Matthew  says  that  the  miracle  was  performed  '' as  they  departed  fyom  Jericho"  while 
St.  Luke  most  distinctly  implies  that  it  took  place  before  He  entered  it.  But  no  reasonable  reader  will  be 
troubled  by  differences  which  do  not  affect  the  truthfulness — though  of  course  they  affect  the  accuracy — of 
the  narrative  ;  and  which,  without  a  direct  and  wholly  needless  miraculous  intervention,  m«j/have  occurred, 
as  they  actually  do  occur,  in  the  narratives  of  the  Evangelists,  as  in  those  of  all  other  truthful  witnesses. 
Of  the  fourteen  or  fifteen  proposed  ways  of  harmonizing  the  discrepancies,  most  involve  a  remedy  far 
worse  than  the  supposed  defect ;  but  Macknight's  suggestion  that  the  miracle  may  have  been  performed 
between  the  t-uv  Jerichos — the  ancient  site  of  the  Canaanite  city,  and  the  new  semi-Herodian  city — is  at  least 
possible.  So,  indeed,  is  the  suggestion  that  one  of  them  was  healed  on  entering,  and  the  other  on  leaving 
the  city.  I  believe  that  if  we  knew  the  exact  circumstances  the  discrepancy  would  vanish  ;  but  even  if  it 
did  not — if,  for  instance,  Matthew  had  spoken  of  Bartimaeus  and  his  guide  as  "  two  blind  men,"  or,  in 
the  course  of  time,  any  trivial  inaccuracy  had  found  its  way  into  the  early  documents  on  which  St.  T  «"'-■; 
based  his  Gospel — I  should  see  nothing  distressing  or  deroganry  -n  such  a  supposition. 


JERICiIO  AND  BETHANY.  455 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  was  passing  by,  they  raised  their  voices  in  the 
cry,  "Jesus,  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  us."  The  multitude  re- 
sented this  loud  clamor  as  unworthy  of  the  majesty  of  Him  who  was  now 
to  enter  Jerusalem  as  the  Messiah  of  His  nation.  But  Jesus  heard  the 
cry,  and  His  compassionate  heart  was  touched.  He  stood  still,  and 
ordered  them  to  be  called  to  Him.  Then  the  obsequious  throng  alter 
their  tone,  and  say  to  Bartimaeus,  who  is  so  much  the  more  prominent 
in  the  narrative  that  two  of  the  Synoptists  do  not  even  mention  his 
companion  at  all — "  Be  of  good  cheer ;  rise,  He  calleth  thee."  With  a 
burst  of  hasty  joy,  flinging  away  his  abba,  he  leaped  up,'  and  was  led  to 
Jesus.  "What  wiliest  thou  that  I  should  do  for  thee?"  "  Rabboni,"  he 
answered  (giving  Jesus  the  most  reverential  title  that  he  knew), ^  "that  I 
may  recover  my  sight."  "Go,"  said  Jesus,  "thy  faith  hath  saved  thee." 
He  touched  the  eyes  both  of  him  and  of  his  companion,  and  with  re- 
covered sight  they  followed  among  the  rejoicing  multitudes,  glori- 
fying God. 

It  was  necessary  to  rest  at  Jericho  before  entering  on  the  dangerous, 
rocky,  robber-haunted  gorge  which  led  from  it  to  Jerusalem,  and  formed  a 
rough,  almost  continuous,  ascent  of  six  hours,^  from  600  feet  below  to 
nearly  3,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  two  most 
distinctive  classes  of  Jericho  were  priests  and  publicans  ;  and,  as  it  was  a 
priestly  city,  it  might  naturally  have  been  expected  that  the  king,  the 
son  of  David,  the  successor  of  Moses,  would  be  received  in  the  house  of 
some  descendant  of  Aaron.  But  the  place  where  Jesus  chose  to  rest 
was  determined  by  other  circumstances.*  A  colony  of  publicans  was 
established  in  the  city  to  secure  the  revenues  accruing  from  the  large 
trafific  in  a  kind  of  balsam,  which  grew  more  luxuriantly  there  than  in 
any  other  place,  and  to  regulate  the  exports  and  imports  between  the 
Roman  province  and  the  dominions  of  Herod  Antipas.  One  of  the  chiefs 
of  these  publicans  was  a  man  named  Zacchseus,  doubly  odious  to  the 
people,  as  being  a  Jew  and  as  exercising  his  functions  so  near  to  the 
Holy  City.  His  official  rank  would  increase  his  unpopularity,  because 
the  Jews  would  regard  it  as  due  to  exceptional  activity  in  the  service  of 
their  Roman  oppressors,  and  they  would  look  upon  his  wealth  as  a  prob- 
able indication  of  numerous  extortions.     This  man  had   a    deep  desire  to 

1  Mark  x.  50. 

2  The  steps  of  honor  were  Rab,  Rabbi,  Rabban,  RabbonL 

3  About  15  miles. 

4  Luke  xix.  i — 10. 


456  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

see  with  his  own  eyes  what  kind  of  person  Jesus  was  ;  but  being  short 
of  stature,  he  was  unable,  in  the  dense  crowd,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Him. 
He  therefore  ran  forward,  as  Jesus  was  passing  through  the  town,  and 
climbed  the  low  branches  of  an  Egyptian  fig,  which  overshadowed  the 
road.'  Under  this  tree  Jesus  would  pass,  and  the  publican  would  have 
ample  opportunity  of  seeing  One  who,  alone  of  His  nation,  not  only 
showed  no  concentrated  and  fanatical  hatred  for  the  class  to  which  hi 
belonged,  but  had  found  among  publicans  His  most  eager  listeners,  and 
had  elevated  one  of  them  into  the  rank  of  an  Apostle.  Zacchaeus  saw 
Him  as  He  approached,  and  how  must  his  heart  have  beat  with  joy  and 
gratitude,  when  the  Great  Prophet,  the  avowed  Messiah  of  His  nation, 
paused  under  the  tree,  looked  up,  and,  calling  him  by  his  name,  bade  him 
hasten  and  come  down,  because  He  intended  to  be  a  guest  in  his  house. 
Zacchaeus  should  not  only  see  Him,  but  He  would  come  in  and  sup  with 
him,  and  make  His  abode  with  him — the  glorious  Messiah  a  guest  of  the 
execrated  publican.  With  undisguised  joy  Zacchaeus  eagerly  hastened 
down  from  the  boughs  of  the  "  sycomore,"  and  led  the  way  to  his  house. ' 
But  the  murmurs  of  the  multitude  were  long,  and  loud,  and  unanimous.' 
They  thought  it  impolitic,  incongruous,  reprehensible,  that  the  King,  in 
the  very  midst  of  His  impassioned  followers,  should  put  up  at  the  house 
of  a  man  whose  very  profession  was  a  symbol  of  the  national  degradation, 
and  who  even  in  that  profession  was,  as  they  openly  implied,  disre^iutable. 
But  the  approving  smile,  the  gracious  word  of  Jesus  were  more  to  Zac- 
chaeus than  all  the  murmurs  and  insults  of  the  crowd.  Jesus  did  not 
despise  him  :  what  mattered  then  the  contempt  of  the  multitu'^e  ?  Nay, 
Jesus,  had  done  him  honor,  therefore  he  would  honor,  he  would  respect 
himself.  As  all  that  was  base  in  him  would  have  been  driven  i'ito  defiance 
by  contempt  and  hatred,  so  all  that  was  noble  was  evoked  br  ■  a  consider- 
ate tenderness.  He  would  strive  to  be  worthy,  at  least  mo^e  worthy,  of 
his  glorious  guest;  he  would  at  least  do  his  utmost  to  disgrace  Him  less. 
And,  therefore,  standing  prominently  forth  among  the  throng,  he  uttered — 
not  to  i/iem,  for  they  despised  him,  and  for  them  he  cared  not,  but  to  his 
Lord — the  vow  which,  by  one  high  act  of  magnanimity,  at  once  attested 

1  The  sycomore,  or  "  Egyptian  fig"  (Luke  xix.  4) — not  to  be  confounded  with  the  sycamine-tree  or 
"  mulberry  "  of  Luke  xvii.  6,  or  with  the  sycamore  or pseuJo-platanus,  which  is  sometimes  erroneously  spelt 
sycomore — is  exceedingly  easy  to  climb. 

2  The  square  ruin  in  the  wretched  village  of  Riha,  the  ancient  Jericho,  is  (of  course)  called  the  bouse 
of  Zaccheeus,  and  is  a  Saracenic  structure  of  the  twelfth  century. 

3  Luke  xix.  7,  "  they  all  began  to  murmur." 


ZACCHEUS    CALLED    BY   JESUS. Luke  xix.   5. 


CHRIST    HEALING   THP:    BLIND.— John  ix.   I. 


JERICHO  AND  BETHANY.  457 

his  penitence  and  sealed  his  forgiveness.  "  Behold  the  halt  ot  my  goods. 
Lord,  I  hereby  give  to  the  poor  ;  and  whatever  fraudulent  gain  I  ever 
made  from  any  one,  I  now  restore  fourfold."'  This  great  sacrifice  of  that 
which  had  hitherto  been  dearest  to  him,  this  fullest  possible  restitution  of 
every  gain  he  had  ever  gotten  dishonestly,  this  public  confession  and  public 
restitution,  should  be  a  pledge  to  his  Lord  that  His  grace  had  not  been 
in  vain.  Thus  did  love  unseal  by  a  single  touch  those  swelling  fountains 
of  penitence  which  contempt  would  have  kept  closed  for  ever  !  No  inci- 
dent of  His  triumphal  procession  could  have  given  to  our  Lord  a  deeper 
and  holier  joy.  Was  it  not  His  very  mission  to  seek  and  save  the  lost  ? 
Looking  on  the  publican,  thus  ennobled  by  that  instant  renunciation  of 
the  fruits  of  sin,  which  is  the  truest  test  of  a  genuine  repentance,  He 
said,  "  Now  is  salvation  come  to  this  house,  since  he  too  is  " — in  the  true 
spiritual  sense,  not  in  the  idle,  boastful,  material  sense  alone — "  a  son  of 
Abraham."^ 

To  show  them  how  mistaken  were  the  expectations  with  which  they 
were  now  excited — how  erroneous,  for  instance,  were  the  principles  on 
which  they  had  just  been  condemning  Him  for  using  the  hospitality  of 
Zacchseus — He  proceeded  (either  at  the  meal  in  the  publican's  house,  or 
more  probably  when  they  had  again  started)  to  tell  them  the  Parable  of 
the  Pounds.3  Adopting  incidents  with  which  the  history  of  the  Herodian 
family  had  made  them  familiar.  He  told  them  of  a  nobleman  who  had 
traveled  into  a  far  country  to  receive  a  kingdom,''  and  had  delivered  to 
each  of  his  servants  a  mina  to  be  profitably  employed  till  his  return  ;  the 
citizens  hated  him,  and  sent  an  embassy  after  him  to  procure  his  rejection. 
,  But  in  spite  of  this  his  kingdom  was  confirmed,  and  he  came  back  to 
punish  his  enemies,  and    to    reward    his    servants    in  proportion    to    their 

1  Lange  and  others  see  in  "  if  I  ever  gained  anything  fraudulently  from  any  one  "  a  sort  of  denial  that 
he  had  ever  cheated — a  challenge  to  any  one  to  come  forward  and  accuse  him  ;  but  the  Greek  idiom  does 
not  imply  this.  Fourfold  restitution  was  more  than  Zacchaeus  need  have  paid  (Numb.  v.  7),  and  evidently, 
if  he  could  redeem  his  pledge,  the  bulk  of  his  property  must  have  been  honestly  acquired. 

2  The  legend  that  he  afterwards  became  Bishop  of  Caesarea  is  too  late  to  be  of  any  value. 

3  Luke  xix.  n — 27. 

4  "A  nobleman  going  into  a  far  country  to  receive  a  kingdom  "  would  be  utterly  unintelligible,  had 
we  not  fortunately  known  that  this  was  done  both  by  Archelaus  and  by  Antipas.  And  in  the  case  of 
Archelaus  the  Jews  had  actually  sent  to  Augustus  a  deputation  of  fifty,  to  recount  his  cruelties  and  oppose 
his  claims,  which,  though  it  failed  at  the  time,  was  subsequently  successful.  Philippus  defended  the  prop- 
erty of  Archelaus  during  his  absence  from  the  encroachments  of  the  Proconsul  Sabinus.  The  magnificent 
palace  which  Archelaus  had  built  at  Jericho  would  naturally  recall  these  circumstances  to  the  mind  of  Jesus, 
and  the  parable  is  another  striking  example  of  the  manner  in  which  He  utilized  the  most  ordinary  circum- 
stances around  Him,  and  made  them  the  bases  of  His  highest  teachings.  It  is  also  another  unsuspected 
indication  of  the  authenticity  and  truthfulness  of  the  Gospels. 


458  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

fidelity.  One  faithless  servant,  instead  of  using  the  sum  intrusted  to 
him,  had  hidden  it  in  a  napkin,  and  returned  it  with  an  unjust  and 
insolent  complaint  of  his  master's  severity.  This  man  was  deprived  of 
his  pound,  which  was  given  to  the  most  deserving  of  the  good  and 
faithful  servants;"  these  were  magnificently  rewarded,  while  the  rebellious 
citizens  were  brought  forth  and  slain.  The  parable  was  one  of  many- 
sided  application;  it  indicated  His  near  departure  from  the  world;  the 
hatred  which  should  reject  Him  ;  the  duty  of  faithfulness  in  the  use  of 
all  that  He  intrusted  to  them  ;  the  uncertainty  of  His  return  ;  the  cer- 
tainty  that,  when  He  did  return,  there  would  be  a  solemn  account  ;  the 
condemnation  of  the  slothful  ;  the  splendid  reward  of  all  who  should 
serve  Him  well  ;  the  utter  destruction  of  those  who  endeavored  to  reject 
His  power.  Probably  while  He  delivered  this  parable  the  caravan  had 
paused,  and  the  pilgrims  had  crowded  round  Him.  Leaving  them  to 
meditate  on  its  significance.  He  once  more  moved  forward  alone  at  the 
head  of  the  long  and  marveling  procession.  They  fell  reverently  back, 
and  followed  Him  with  many  a  look  of  awe  as  He  slowly  climbed  the 
long,  sultry,  barren  gorge.^ 

He  did  not  mean  to  make  the  city  of  Jerusalem  His  actual  resting- 
place,  but  preferred  as  usual  to  stay  in  the  loved  home  at  Bethany. 
Thither  He  arrived  on  the  evening  of  Friday,  Nisan  8,  A.U.C.  780 
(March  31,  A.D.  30),  six  days  before  the  Passover,  and  before  the  sun- 
set had  commenced  the  Sabbath  hours.  Here  He  would  part  from  His 
train  of  pilgrims,  some  of  whom  would  go  to  enjoy  the  hospitality  of 
their  friends  in  the  city,  and  others,  as  they  do  at  the  present  day, 
would  run  up  for  themselves  rude  tents  and  booths  in  the  valley  of  the 
Kedron,  and  about  the  western  slopes  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

The  Sabbath  day  was  spent  in  quiet,  and  in  the  evening  they  made 
Him  a  supper.^  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  say,  a  little  mysteriously, 
that  this  feast  was  given  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper.  St.  John  makes 
no  mention  whatever    of    Simon  the  leper,  a  name  which  does  not  occur 

1  The  surprised  interpellation  of  the  people,  "Lord,  he  hath  ten  pounds,"  is  an  interesting  proof  of 
the  intense  and  absorbing  interest  with  which  they  listened  to  these  parables. 

2  Luke  xix.  28. 

3  Matt.  xxvi.  6—13;  Mark.  xiv.  3 — 9;  John  xii.  i — 9.  This  Sabbath  preceding  the  Passover  was  called 
by  the  Jews  Shabbath  Haggadol,  or  the  "  Great  Sabbath."  It  is  only  in  appearance  that  the  Synoptists  seem 
to  place  this  feast  two  days  before  the  Passover.  They  narrate  it  there  to  account  for  the  treachery  of  Judas, 
which  was  consummated  by  hisyf«a/ arrangements  with  the  Sanhedrin  on  the  Wednesday  a{  Holy  week;  but 
we  see  from  St.  John  that  this  latter  must  have  been  his  second  interview  with  them;  at  the  first  interview- 
all  details  had  been  left  indefinite. 


JERICHO  AND  BETHANY.  459 

elsewhere;  and  it  is  clear  from  his  narrative  that  the  family  of  Bethany 
were  in  all  respects  the  central  figures  at  this  entertainment.  Martha 
seems  to  have  had  the  entire  supervision  of  the  feast,  and  the  risen 
Lazarus  was  almost  as  much  an  object  of  curiosity  as  Jesus  himself.  In 
short,  so  many  thronged  to  see  Lazarus— for  the  family  was  one  of  good 
position,  and  its  members  were  widely  known  and  beloved — that  the 
notorious  and  indisputable  miracle  which  had  been  performed  on  his  be- 
half caused  many  to  believe  on  Jesus.  This  so  exasperated  the  ruling 
party  at  Jerusalem  that,  in  their  wicked  desperation,  they  actually  held  a 
consultation  how  they  might  get  rid  of  this  living  witness  to  the  super- 
natural powers  of  the  Messiah  whom  they  rejected.  Now  since  the  rais- 
ing of  Lazarus  was  immediately  connected  with  the  entire  cycle  of  events 
which  the  earlier  Evangelists  so  minutely  record,  we  are  again  driven  to 
the  conclusion  that  there  must  have  been  some  good  reason,  a  reason 
which  we  can  but  uncertainly  conjecture,  for  their  marked  reticence  on 
this  subject;  and  we  find  another  trace  of  this  reticence  in  their  call- 
incr  Mary  "a  certain  woman,"  in  their  omission  of  all  allusion  to  Martha 
and  Lazarus,  and  in  their  telling  us  that  this  memorable  banquet  was 
served  in  the  house  of  "  Simon  the  leper."  Who  then  was  this  Simon 
the  leper?  That  he  was  no  longer  a  leper  is  of  course  certain,  for  other- 
wise he  could  not  have  been  living  in  his  own  house,  or  mingling  in 
general  society.  Had  he  then  been  cleansed  by  Jesus?  and,  if  so,  was 
this  one  cause  of.  the  profound  belief  in  Him  which  prevailed  in  that  little 
household,  and  of  the  tender  affection  with  which  they  always  welcomed 
Him  ?  or,  again,  was  Simon  now  dead  ?  We  cannot  answer  these  questions, 
nor  are  there  sufficient  data  to  enable  us  to  decide  whether  he  was  the 
father  of  Martha  and  Mary  and  Lazarus,  or,  as  some  have  conjectured, 
whether  Martha  was  his  widow,  and  the  inheritress  of  his  house. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  feast  was  chiefly  memorable,  not  for  the  number 
of  Jews  who  thronged  to  witness  it,  and  so  to  gaze  at  once  on  the  Prophet 
of  Nazareth  and  on  the  man  whom  He  had  raised  from  the  dead,  but 
from  one  memorable  incident  which  occurred  in  the  course  of  it,  and  which 
was  the  immediate  beginning  of  the  dark  and  dreadful  end. 

For  as  she  sat  there  in  the  presence  of  her  beloved  and  rescued 
brother,  and  her  yet  more  deeply  worshipped  Lord,  the  feelings  of  Mary 
could  no  longer  be  restrained.  She  was  not  occupied  like  her  sister  in 
the  active  ministrations  of  the  feast,  but  she  sat  and  thought  and  gazed 
until  the  fire  burned,  and  she  felt  impelled  to  some  outward  sign  of  her 


460  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

love,  her  gratitude,  her  adoration.  So  she  arose  and  fetched  an  alabaster 
vase  of  Indian  spikenard,  and  came  softly  behind  Jesus  where  He  sat, 
and  broke  the  alabaster  in  her  hands,  and  poured  the  genuine "  precious 
perfume  first  over  His  head,  then  over  His  feet  ;  and  then — unconscious 
of  every  presence  save  His  alone — she  wiped  those  feet  with  the  long 
tresses  of  her  hair,  while  the  atmosphere  of  the  whole  house  was  filled 
with  the  delicious  fragrance.  It  was  an  act  of  devoted  sacrifice,  of  ex- 
quisite self-abandonment ;  and  the  poor  Galileans  who  followed  Jesus,  so 
little  accustomed  to  any  luxury,  so  fully  alive  to  the  costly  nature  of  the 
gift,  might  well  have  been  amazed  that  it  should  have  all  been  lavished 
on  the  rich  luxury  of  one  brief  moment.  None  but  the  most  spiritual- 
hearted  there  could  feel  that  the  delicate  odor  which  breathed  through 
the  perfumed  house  might  be  to  God  a  sweet-smelling  savor;  that  even 
this  was  infinitely  too  little  to  satisfy  the  love  of  her  who  gave,  or  the 
dignity  of  Him  to  whom  the  gift  was  given. 

But  there  was  one  present  to  whom  on  every  ground  the  act  was 
odious  and  repulsive.  There  is  no  vice  at  once  so  absorbing,  so  un- 
reasonable, and  so  degrading  as  the  vice  of  avarice,  and  avarice  was  the 
besetting  sin  in  the  dark  soul  of  the  traitor  Judas.  The  failure  to 
struggle  with  his  own  temptations  ;  the  disappointment  of  every  expecta- 
tion which  had  first  drawn  him  to  Jesus;  the  intolerable  rebuke  conveyed 
to  his  whole  being  by  the  daily  communion  with  a  sinless  purity ;  the 
darker  shadow  which  he  could  not  but  feel  that  his  guilt  flung  athwart 
his  footsteps  because  of  the  burning  sunlight  in  which  for  many  months 
he  now  had  walked  ;  the  sense  too  that  the  eye  of  his  Master,  possibly 
even  the  eyes  of  some  of  his  fellow-apostles,  had  read  or  were  beginning 
to  read  the  hidden  secrets  of  his  heart  ; — all  these  things  had  gradually 
deepened  from  an  incipient  alienation  into  an  insatiable  repugnancy  and 
hate.  And  the  sight  of  Mary's  lavish  sacrifice,  the  consciousness  that  it 
was  now  too  late  to  save  that  large  sum  for  the  bag — the  mere  posses- 
sion of  which,  apart  from  the  sums  which  he  could  pilfer  out  of  it,  grati- 
fied his  greed  for  gold — filled  him  with  disgust  and  madness.  He  had  a 
devil.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  been  personally  cheated;  as  if  the  money, 
were  by  right  his,  and  he  had  been,  in  a  senseless  manner,  defrauded  of 
it.      "To    what    purpose    is  this  waste?"    he  indignantly  said;  and,  alas! 

I  Mark  xiv.  3.  The  possession  of  so  expensive  an  unguent  shows  that  the  family  was  rich.  It  would 
have  been  under  any  circumstances  a  princely  gift.  It  "  was  so  great  an  ecstacy  of  love,  sorrow,  and 
adoration,  that  to  anoint  the  feet,  even  of  the  greatest  monarch,  was  long  unknown;  and  in  all  the  pomps 
and  greatnesses  of  the  Roman  prodigality,  it  was  not  used  till  Otho  taught  it  to  Nero"  (PlinyJ. 


JERICHO  AND  BETHANY.  461 

how  often  have  his  words  been  echoed,  for  wherever  there  is  an  act  of 
splendid  self-forgetfulness  there  is  always  a  Judas  to  sneer  and  murmur 
at  it.  "  This  ointment  might  have  been  sold  for  three  hundred  pence 
and  given  to  the  poor  ! "  Three  hundred  pence — ten  pounds  or  more  ! 
There  was  perfect  frenzy  in  the  thought  of  such  utter  perdition  of  good 
money;'  why,  for  barely  a  third  of  such  a  sum,  this  son  of  perdition  was 
ready  to  sell  his  Lord.  Mary  thought  it  not  good  enough  to  anele 
Christ's  sacred  feet  :  Judas  thought  a  third  part  of  it  sufficient  reward  for 
selling  His  very  life. 

That  little  touch  about  its  "  being  given  to  the  poor  "  is  a  very  in- 
structive one.  It  was  probably  the  veil  used  by  Judas  to  half  conceal 
even  from  himself  the  grossness  of  his  own  motives — the  fact  that  he 
was  a  petty  thief,  and  really  wished  the  charge  of  this  money  because  it 
would  have  enabled  him  to  add  to  his  own  private  store.  People  rarely 
sin  under  the  full  glare  of  self-consciousness  ;  they  usually  blind  them- 
selves with  false  pretexts  and  specious  motives  ;  and  though  Judas  could 
not  conceal  his  baseness  from  the  clearer  eye  of  John,  he  probably  con- 
cealed it  from  himself  under  the  notion  that  he  really  was  protestino- 
against  an  act  of  romantic  wastefulness,  and  pleading  the  cause  of  dis- 
interested charity. 

But  Jesus  would  not  permit  the  contagion  of  this  worldly  indigna- 
tion— which  had  already  infected  some  of  the  simple  disciples — to  spread 
any  farther;  nor  would  He  allow  Mary,  already  the  center  of  an  unfav- 
orable observation  which  pained  and  troubled  her,  to  suffer  any  more 
from  the  consequences  of  her  noble  act.  "  Why  trouble  ye  the  woman?" 
He  said.  "  Let  her  alone  ;  she  wrought  a  good  work  upon  Me  ;  for  ye 
have  the  poor  always  with  you,  but  Me  ye  have  not  always  ;  for  in  cast- 
ing this  ointment  on  My  body,  she  did  it  for  My  burying."  And  He 
added  the  prophecy — a  prophecy  which  to  this  day  is  memorably  ful- 
filled— that  wherever  the  Gospel  should  be  preached  that  deed  of  hers 
should  be  recorded  and  honored. 

"For  My  burying  "—clearly,  therefore,  His  condemnation  and  burial 
were  near  at  hand.  This  was  another  death-blow  to  all  false  Messianic 
hopes.  No  earthly  wealth,  no  regal  elevation  could  be  looked  for  by  the 
followers  of  One  who  was  so  soon  to  die.  It  may  have  been  another 
impulse  of  disappointment  to  the  thievish  traitor  who   had    thus   publicly 

I  Matt.  xxvi.  8,  "  {or  what  purpose  is  this  perdition  ?"  ("  Nay,  thou  Judas  art  the  son  of  perdition," 
John  xvii.  12.)  "  More  than  three  hundred  pence  "  would  be  at  least  fifty  dollars,  while  the  thirty  pieces 
of  silver  for  which  Judas  bargained  to  betray  Jesus  were  not  more  than  nineteen  dollars. 


462  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

been  not  only  thwarted,  but  also  silenced,  and  impucitly  rebuked.  The 
loss  of  the  money,  which  might  by  imagination  have  been  under  his  own 
control,  burnt  in  him  with  "a  secret,  dark,  melancholic  fire."  He  would 
not  lose  everything.  In  his  hatred,  and  madness,  and  despair,  he  slunk 
away  from  Bethany  that  night,  and  made  his  way  to  Jerusalem,  and  got 
introduced  into  the  council-room  of  the  chief  priests  in  the  house  of 
Caiaphas,  and  had  that  first  fatal  interview  in  which  he  bargained  with 
them  to  betray  his  Lord.  "  What  are  you  willing  to  give  me,  and  I  will 
betray  Him  to  you?"  What  greedy  chafferings  took  place  we  are  not 
told,  nor  whether  the  counter-avarices  of  these  united  hatreds  had  a 
struggle  before  they  decided  on  the  paltry  blood-money.  If  so,  the 
astute  Jewish  priests  beat  down  the  poor  ignorant  Jewish  Apostle.  For 
all  that  they  offered  and  all  they  paid  was  thirty  pieces  of  silver' — about 
^2  i6j. — the  ransom-money  of  the  meanest  slave.  For  this  price  he  was 
to  sell  his  Master,  and  in  selling  his  Master  to  sell  his  own  life,  and  to 
gain  in  return  the  execration  of  the  world  for  all  generations  yet  to 
come.  And  so,  for  the  last  week  of  his  own  and  his  Master's  life,  Judas 
moved  about  with  the  purpose  of  murder  in  his  dark  and  desperate 
heart.  But  as  yet  no  day  had  been  fixed,  no  plan  decided  on — only  the 
betrayal  paid  for ;  and  there  seems  to  have  been  a  general  conviction 
that  it  would  not  do  to  make  the  attempt  during  the  actual  feast,  lest 
there  should  be  an  uproar  among  the  multitude  who  accepted  Him,  and 
especially  among  the  dense  throngs  of  pilgrims  from  His  native  Galilee. 
They  believed  that  many  opportunities  would  occur,  either  at  Jerusalem 
or  elsewhere,  when  the  great  Passover  was  finished,  and  the  Holy  City 
had  relapsed  into  its  ordinary  calm. 

And  the  events  of  the  following  day  would  be  likely  to  give  the 
most  emphatic  confirmation  to  the  worldly  wisdom  of  their  wicked 
decision. 

I  See  Exod.  xxi.  32  ;  Zech.  xi.  12.  "  They  weighed  "  of  Matt.  xxvi.  15  seems  to  imply  that  the  money 
was  paid  down.  No  actual  shekels  were  current  at  this  time,  but  Judas  may  have  been  paid  in  Syrian  or 
Phenician  tetradrachms,  which  were  of  the  same  weight.  The  paltriness  of  the  sum  (if  it  were  not  mere 
earnest-money)  undoubtedly  shows  that  the  authorities  did  not  regard  the  services  of  Judas  as  indispcnsablt. 
He  only  saved  them  trouble  and  possible  blood-shedding. 


CHAPTER     XLIX. 


PALM    SUNDAY. 


"  Ride  on,  ride  on  in  majesty, 
In  lowly  pomp  ride  on  to  die  !  " — Hymn. 

dIi.  ...ill,  .„iHi  ^..0^ 

HERE  seems  to  have  been  a  general  impression 
for  some  time  beforehand  that,  in  spite  of  all 
which  had  recently  happened,  Jesus  would  still 
be  present  at  the  Paschal  Feast.  The  prob- 
ability of  this  had  incessantly  been  debated 
among  the  people,  and  the  expected  arrival  of 
the  Prophet  of  Galilee  was  looked  forward  to 
with  intense  curiosity  and  interest.' 

Consequently,  when  it  became  known  early 
on  Sunday  morning  that  during  the  day  He 
would  certainly  enter  the  Holy  City,  the  excite- 
ment was  very  great.  The  news  would  be  spread  by 
some  of  the  numerous  Jews  who  had  visited  Bethany  on 
the  previous  evening,  after  the  sunset  had  closed  the  Sab- 
bath, and  thus  enabled  them  to  exceed  the  limits  of  the 
Sabbath-day's  journey.  Thus  it  was  that  a  very  great  multitude 
was  prepared  to  receive  and  welcome  the  Deliverer  who  had  raised 
the  dead. 

He  started  on  foot.  Three  roads  led  from  Bethany  over  the  Mount 
of  Olives  to  Jerusalem.  One  of  these  passes  between  its  northern^  and 
central  summits ;  the  other  ascends  the  highest  point  of  its  mountain, 
and  slopes  down  through  the  modern  village  of  Et  Tur  ;  the  third,  which 
is,  and  always  must  have  been,  the  main  road,  sweeps  round  the  southern 
shoulder  of  the  central  mass,  between  it  and  the  "  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel." 
The    others    are    rather    mountaih    paths    than    roads,    and    as  Jesus   was 

1  Matt.  xxi.  I — II  ;  Mark  xi.  I — ii  ;  Luke  xix.  28 — 40  ;  John  xii.  12 — 19. 

2  Traditionally  called  the  "  Hill  of  Offense,"  and  by  Milton,  "that  opprobrious  hill  ;"  the  supposed 
site  of  Solomon's  idolatrous  temples.  It  is  now  known  as  the  Viri  Galila;!,  in  reference  to  Acts  i.  11.  The 
"  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel  "  is  the  one  on  which  stands  the  ruins  of  the  so-called  "  Honse  of  Caiapbas." 
Williams  notices  it  as  a  curious  fact  that  the  tomb  of  Annas  is  not  far  from  this  spot 


464  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

attended  by  so  many  disciples,  it    is    clear   that    He   took    the    third  and 

easiest  route. 

Passing  from  under  the  palm-trees  of  Bethany,'  they  approached  the 
fig-gardens  of  Bethphage,  the  "  House  of  Figs,"  a  small  suburb  or  ham- 
let of  undiscovered  site,  which  lay  probably  a  little  to  the  south  of 
Bethany,  and  in  sight  of  it.  To  this  village,  or  some  other  hamlet  which 
lay  near  it,  Jesus  dispatched  two  of  His  disciples.  The  minute  descrip- 
tion of  the  spot  given  by  St.  Mark  makes  us  suppose  that  Peter  was 
one  of  them,  and  if  so  he  was  probably  accompanied  by  John.  Jesus 
told  them  that  when  they  got  to  the  village  they  should  find  an  ass  tied, 
and  a  colt  with  her  ;  these  they  were  to  loose  and  bring  to  Him,  and  if 
any  objection  arose  on  the  part  of  the  owner,  it  would  at  once  be 
silenced  by  telling  him  that  "the  Lord  had  need  of  them."  Everything 
happened  as  He  had  said.  In  the  passage  round  the  house — i.e.,  tied  up 
at  the  back  of  the  house' — they  found  the  ass  and  the  foal,  which  was 
adapted  for  its  sacred  purpose  because  it  had  never  yet  been  used.^  The 
owners,  on  hearing  their  object,  at  once  permitted  them  to  take  the  ani- 
mals, and  they  led  them  to  Jesus,  putting  their  garments  over  them  to  do 
Him    regal    honor.< 

Then  they  lifted  Him  upon  the  colt,  and  the  triumphal  pro- 
cession set  forth.  It  was  no  seditious  movement  to  stir  up  political 
enthusiasm,  no  "  insulting  vanity "  to  commemorate  ambitious  triumph. 
Nay,  it  was  a  mere  outburst  of  provincial  joy,  the  simple  exul- 
tation of  poor  Galileans  and  despised  disciples.  He  rides,  not  upon  a 
war-horse,  but  on  an  animal  which  was  the  symbol  of  peace.  The 
haughty  Gentiles,  had  they  witnessed  the  humble  procession,  would  have 
utterly  derided   it,   as    indeed    they  did    deride  the  record  of   it;^  but  the 

1  There  are  no  palms  at  Bethany  now,  but  there  may  have  been  at  that  period.  Throughout  Palestine 
the  palm  and  vine  and  fig-tree  are  far  rarer  than  they  were.  Some  identify  Bethphage  with  Abu  Dis. 
Lightfoot,  apparently  with  Talmudical  authority,  makes  it  a  suburb  of  Jerusalem.  From  the  fact  that  in  a 
journey  towards  Jerusalem  it  is  always  mentioned  before  Bethany,  we  might  assume  that  it  was  east  of 
that  village. 

2  Mark  xi.  4. 

3  Numb.  xix.  2  ;  Deut.  xxi.  3  ;  i  Sam.  vi.  7. 

4  Comp.  2  Kings  ix.  13. 

5  For  instance,  Julian  and  Sapor.  In  fact,  the  Romans  had  all  kinds  of  sneers  against  the  Jews  in 
connection  with  the  ass.  The  Christians  came  in  for  a  share  of  this  stupid  jest,  and  were  called  asinarii 
cultores.  Sapor  offered  the  Jews  a  horse  to  serve  the  purpose  of  carrying  their  expected  Messiah,  and  a 
Jew  haughtily  answered  him  that  all  his  horses  were  far  below  the  ass  which  should  carry  the  Messiah, 
which  was  to  be  descended  from  that  used  by  Abraham  when  he  went  to  offer  Isaac,  and  that  used  by 
Moses.  If,  however,  He  came  riding  on  an  ass,  and  not  on  the  clouds,  it  was  to  be  a  sign  of  their  faith- 
lessness.   The  ass  is  not  in  the  East  by  any  means  a  despised  or  a  despicable  animal  (Gen.  xlix.  14  ;  xxii.  3 ; 


THE   WICKED    HUSBANDMEN —Malt 


iiii:;:jll»|;?'Si'5l!ll'''' 


PALM  SUNDAY.  465 

Apostles  recalled  in  after-days  that  it  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Zechariah  : 
"  Rejoice  greatly,  O  daughter  of  Sion  ;  shout,  O  daughter  of  Jerusalem  ; 
behold,  thy  King  cometh  unto  thee  ;  He  is  meek,  and  having  salvation  ; 
lowly,  and  riding  upon  an  ass,  and  upon  a  colt  the  foal  of  an  ass."  Yes, 
it  was  a  procession  of  very  lowly  pomp,  and  yet  beside  it  how  do  the 
grandest  triumphs  of  aggressive  war  and  unjust  conquest  sink  into  utter 
insignificance  and  disgrace ! 

Jesus  mounted  the  unused  foal,  while  probably  some  of  His  disciples 
led  it  by  the  bridle.  And  no  sooner  had  He  started  than  the  multitude 
spread  out'  their  upper  garments  to  tapestry  His  path,  and  kept  tearing 
or  cutting  down  the  boughs  of  olive,  and  fig,  and  walnut,  to  scatter  them 
before  Him.  Then,  in  a  burst  of  enthusiasm,  the  disciples  broke  mto 
the  shout,  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David !  Blessed  is  the  King  of 
Israel  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  !  Hosanna  in  the  highest  !"^ 
and  the  multitude  caught  up  the  joyous  strain,  and  told  each  other  how 
He  had  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead. 

The  road  slopes  by  a  gradual  ascent  up  the  Mount  of  Olives,  through 
green  fields  and  under  shady  trees,  till  it  suddenly  sweeps  round  to  the 
northward.  It  is  at  this  angle  of  the  road  that  Jerusalem,  which  hitherto 
has  been  hidden  by  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  bursts  full  upon  the  view. 
There,  through  the  clear  atmosphere,  rising  out  of  the  deep  umbrageous 
valleys  which  surrounded  it,  the  city  of  ten  thousand  memories  stood 
clear  before  Him,  and  the  morning  sunlight,  as  it  blazed  on  the  marble 
pinnacles  and  gilded  roofs  of  the  Temple  buildings,  was  reflected  in  a 
very  fiery  splendor  which  forced  the  spectator  to  avert  his  glance.  Such 
a  glimpse  of  such  a  city  is  at  all  times  affecting,  and  many  a  Jewish  and 
Gentile  traveler  has  reined  his  horse  at  this  spot,  and  gazed  upon  the 
scene  in  emotion  too  deep  for  speech.  But  the  Jerusalem  of  that  day, 
with  "  its  imperial  mantle  of  proud  towers,"  was  regarded  as  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world,  and  was  a  spectacle  incomparably  more  magnificent 
than  the  decayed  and  crumbling  city  of  to-day.  And  who  can  interpret, 
who  can  enter  into  the  mighty  rush  of  divine  compassion  which,  at  that 
spectacle,  shook  the  Saviour's  soul?     As  He  gazed  on  that  "mass  of  gold 

2  Sam.  xiii.  29  ;  Judg.  v.  10) ;  it  is  curious,  however,  to  see  that,  because  it  was  despised  by  Europeans 
and  Gentiles,  Josephus  is  fond  of  substituting  for  it  "  beast"  and  "  horse,"  and  the  LXX.,  with  dishonest 
discretion,  soften  it  down  to  "  beast  of  burden,"  and  "  steed,"  in  Zech.  ix.  9  It  is  clear  that  Jesus  rode 
upon  the  foal,  which  by  its  motfcer's  side  could  be  led  quietly  along. 

1  Matt.  xxi.  8. 

2  These  various  cries  are  all  from  the  Psalms  which  formed  the  Hallel  (Ps.  cxiii. — cxviii.)  sung  at 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  (Ps.  cxviii.  25). 

30 


466  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  snow,"  was  there  no  pride,  no  exultation  in  the  heart  of  its  true 
King?  Far  from  it!  He  had  dropped  silent  tears  at  the  grave  of 
Lazarus ;  here  He  wept  aloud.  All  the  shame  of  His  mockery,  all  the 
anguish  of  His  torture,  was  powerless,  five  days  afterwards,  to  extort 
from  Him  a  single  groan,  or  to  wet  His  eyelids  with  one  trickling  tear; 
but  here,  all  the  pity  that  was  within  Him  overmastered  His  human 
spirit,  and  He  not  only  wept,  but  broke  into  a  passion  of  lamentation, 
in  which  the  choked  voice  seemed  to  struggle  for  its  utterance.  A 
strange  Messianic  triumph !  a  strange  interruption  of  the  festal  cries ! 
The  Deliverer  weeps  over  the  city  which  it  is  now  too  late  to  save  ;  the 
King  prophesies  the  utter  ruin  of  the  nation  which  He  came  to  rule ! 
"If  thou  hadst  known,"  He  cried — while  the  wondering  multitudes  looked 
on,  and  knew  not  what  to  think  or  say — "  If  thou  hadst  known,  even 
thou,  at  least  in  thy  day,  the  things  that  belong  unto  thy  peace!" — and 
there  sorrow  interrupted  the  sentence,  and,  when  He  found  voice  to 
continue.  He  could  only  add,  "but  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes. 
For  the  days  shall  come  upon  thee  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a  trench 
about  thee,  and  compass  thee  round,  and  keep  thee  in  on  every  side,  and 
shall  lay  thee  even  with  the  ground,  and  thy  children  within  thee  ;  and 
they  shall  not  leave  in  thee  one  stone  upon  another,  because  thou 
knewest  not  the  time  of  thy  visitation."  It  was  the  last  invitation  from 
"  the  Glory  of  God  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,"  before  that  Shechinah  van- 
ished from  their  eyes  for  ever." 

Sternly,  literally,  terribly,  within  fifty  years  was  that  prophecy  fulfilled. 
Four  years  before  the  war  began,  while  as  yet  the  city  was  in  the  greatest 
peace  and  prosperity,  a  melancholy  maniac  traversed  its  streets  with  the 
repeated  cry,  "  A  voice  from  the  east,  a  voice  from  the  west,  a  voice 
from  the  four  winds,  a  voice  against  Jerusalem  and  the  holy  house,  a 
voice  against  the  bridegrooms  and  the  brides,  and  a  voice  against  this 
whole  people  ; "  nor  could  any  scourgings  or  tortures  wring  from  him  any 
other  words  except  "Woe!  woe!  to  Jerusalem;  woe  to  the  city;  woe  to 
the  people  ;  woe  to  the  holy  house!"  until  seven  years  afterwards,  during 
the  siege,  he  was  killed  by  a  stone  from  a  catapult.  His  voice  was  but 
the  renewed  echo  of  the  voice  of  prophecy. 

Titus  had  not  originally  wished  to  encompass  the  city,  but  he  was 
forced,  by  the    despair    and    obstinacy  of    the    Jews,  to    surround  it,  first 

I  Commenting  on  Ezek.  xi.  23,  the  Rabbis  said  that  the  Shechinah  retired  eastward  to  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  and  there  tor  three  years  called  in  vain  to  the  peoples  ivith  human  voice  that  they  should 
repent ;  then  withdrew  for  ever. 


PALM  SUNDAY.  467 

with  a  palisaded  mound,  and  then,  when  this  vallum  and  agger  were 
destroyed,  with  a  wall  of  masonry.  He  did  not  wish  to  sacrifice  the 
Temple — nay,  he  made  every  possible  effort  to  save  it — but  he  was  forced 
to  leave  it  in  ashes.  He  did  not  intend  to  be  cruel  to  the  inhabitants, 
but  the  deadly  fanaticism  of  their  opposition  so  extinguished  all  desire 
to  spare  them,  that  he  undertook  the  task  of  well-nigh  exterminating  the 
race — of  crucifying  them  by  hundreds,  of  exposing  them  in  the  amphi- 
theater by  thousands,  of  selling  them  into  slavery  by  myriads.  Josephus 
tells  us  that,  even  immediately  after  the  siege  of  Titus,  no  one,  in  the 
desert  waste  around  him,  would  have  recognized  the  beauty  of  Judea; 
and  that  if  any  Jew  had  come  upon  the  city  of  a  sudden,  however  well 
he  had  known  it  before,  he  would  have  asked  "what  place  it  was?"  And 
he  who,  in  modern  Jerusalem,  would  look  for  relics  of  the  ten-times- 
captured  city  of  the  days  of  Christ,  must  look  for  them  twenty  feet 
beneath  the  soil,  and  will  scarcely  find  them.  In  one  spot  alone  remain 
a  few  massive  substructions,  as  though  to  show  how  vast  is  the  ruin  they 
represent  ;  and  here,  on  every  Friday,  assemble  a  few  poverty-stricken 
Jews,  to  stand  each  in  the  shroud  in  which  he  will  be  buried  and  wail 
over  the  shattered  glories  of  their  fallen  and  desecrated  home.' 

There  had  been  a  pause  in  the  procession  while  Jesus  shed  His  bitter 
tears  and  uttered  His  prophetic  lamentation.  But  now  the  people  in  the 
valley  of  Kedron,  and  about  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  pilgrims 
whose  booths  and  tents  stood  so  thickly  on  the  green  slopes  below,  had 
caught  sight  of  the  approaching  company,  and  heard  the  echo  of  the  glad 
shouts,  and  knew  what  the  commotion  meant.  At  that  time  the  palms 
were  numerous  in  the  neighborhood  of  Jerusalem,  though  now  but  a  few 
remain  ;  and  tearing  down  their  green  and  graceful  branches,  the  people 
streamed  up  the  road  to  meet  the  approaching  Prophet.^  And  when  the 
two  streams  of  people  met — those  who  had  accompanied  Him  from  Bethany, 
and  those  who  had  come  to  meet  Him  from  Jerusalem— they  left  Him 
riding  in  the  midst,  and  some  preceding,  some  following  Him,  advanced, 

1  "  Before  my  mind's  eye,"  says  Dr.  Frank],  describing  his  first  glimpse  of  Jerusalem,  "passed  in 
review  the  deeds  and  the  forms  of  former  centuries.  A  voice  within  me  said,  '  Graves  upon  graves  in 
graves!'  I  was  deeply  moved,  and,  bowing  in  my  saddle  before  the  city  of  Jehovah,  tears  fell  upon  my 
horse's  mane." 

2  John  xii.  13,  "  the  branches  of  the  palm-trees,"  which  were  familiar  to  St.  John,  and  which,  if  the  old 
derivation  can  stand,  gave  to  Bethany  its  name.  Dean  Stanley  is  the  first  writer  who  seems  accurately  to 
have  appreciated  the  facts  and  order  of  the  triumphal  entry.  The  Maccabees  were  welcomed  into  Jerusalem 
with  similar  acclamations  (2  Mace.  x.  7).  A  singular  illustration  of  the  faithfulness  and  accuracy  of  the 
Evangelists  was  given  by  the  wholly  accidental  and  unpremeditated  re-enactment  of  the  very  same  seen* 
when  Mr.  Farran,  the  English  consul  of  Damascus,  visited  Je''''salem  at  a  time  of  great  distress,  in  1834 


468  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

shouting  "Hosannas"  and  wating  branches,  to  the  gate  of  Jerusalem. 
Mingled  among  the  crowd  were  some  of  the  Pharisees,  and  the  joy  of 
the  multitude  was  to  them  gall  and  wormwood.  What  meant  these 
Messianic  cries  and  kingly  titles  ?  Were  they  not  dangerous  and  unseemly? 
Why  did  He  allow  them?  "Master,  rebuke  Thy  disciples."  But  He 
would  not  do  so.  "If  these  should  hold  their  peace,"  He  said,  "the 
stones  would  immediately  cry  out."  The  words  may  have  recalled  to  them 
the  threats  which  occur,  amid  denunciations  against  covetousness  and  cruelty, 
and  the  utter  destruction  by  which  they  should  be  avenged,  in  the  prophet 
Habakkuk — "  For  the  stone  shall  cry  out  of  the  wall,  and  the  beam  out 
of  the  timber  shall  answer  it."  The  Pharisees  felt  that  they  were  power- 
less to  stay  the  flood  of  enthusiasm. 

And  when  they  reached  the  walls  the  whole  city  was  stirred  with 
powerful  excitement  and  alarm.'  "Who  is  this?"  they  asked,  as  they 
leaned  out  of  the  lattices  and  from  the  roofs,  and  stood  aside  in  the 
bazaars  and  streets  to  let  them  pass  ;  and  the  multitude  answered,  with 
something  of  pride  in  their  great  countryman — but  already,  as  it  were, 
with  a  shadow  of  distrust  falling  over  their  high  Messianic  hopes,  as  they 
came  in  contact  with  the  contempt  and  hostility  of  the  capital — "  This 
is  Jesus,  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth." 

The  actual  procession  would  not  proceed  farther  than  the  foot  of 
Mount  Moriah  (the  Har  ha-bcit,  Isa.  ii.  2),  beyond  which  they  might  not 
advance  in  traveling  array,  or  with  dusty  feet.  Before  they  had  reached 
the  Shushan  gate  of  the  Temple  they  dispersed,  and  Jesus  entered.  The 
Lord  whom  they  sought  had  come  suddenly  to  His  Temple — even  the 
messenger  of  the  covenant;  but  they  neither  recognized  Him,  nor  de- 
lighted in  Him,  though  His  first  act  was  to  purify  and  purge  it,  that 
they  might  offer  to  the  Lord  an  offering  in  righteousness.^  As  He 
looked  round  on  all  things^  His  heart  was  again    moved  within  Him    to 

1  Matt.  xxi.  10  ;  cf.  xxviii.  4. 

2  Mai.  iii.  i — 3. 

3  I  follow  the  order  of  St.  Matthew  in  preference  to  that  of  St.  Mark,  in  fixing  the  cleansing  of  the 
Temple  on  Palm  Sunday,  and  immediately  after  the  triumphal  entry  ;  and  for  these  reasons  :  (i)  because 
it  is  most  unlikely  that  Jesus  started  late  in  the  day  ;  it  would  be  very  hot,  even  in  that  season  of  the  year. 
and  contrary  to  His  usual  habits.  (2)  If,  then,  He  started  early,  and  did  not  leave  the  Temple  till  late 
(Mark  xi.  11),  there  is  no  indication  of  how  the  day  was  spent  (for  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  would  not 
occupy  more,  at  the  very  most,  than  two  hours),  unless  we  suppose  that  the  incidents  narrated  in  the  text 
took  place  on  the  Sunday,  as  St.  Matthew,  St.  Luke,  and  St.  John  seem  to  imply.  (3)  The  cleansing  of  the 
Temple  would  be  a  much  more  natural  sequel  of  the  triumphal  entry,  than  of  the  quiet  walk  next  day. 
(4)  There  is  no  adequate  reason  to  account  for  the  postponement  of  such  a  purification  of  the  Temple  till 
the  following  day. 

\ 

\ 


PALM  SUNDAY.  469 

Strong  indignation.  Three  years  before,  at  His  first  Passover,  He  had 
cleansed  the  Temple ;  but,  alas  !  in  vain.  Already  greed  had  won  the 
battle  against  reverence  ;  already  the  tesselated  floors  and  pillared  colon- 
nades of  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles  had  been  again  usurped  by  droves  of 
oxen  and  sheep,  and  dove-sellers,  and  usurers,  and  its  whole  precincts 
were  dirty  with  driven  cattle,  and  echoed  to  the  hum  of  bargaining  voices 
and  the  clink  of  gold.  In  that  desecrated  place  He  would  not  teach. 
Once  more,  in  mingled  sorrow  and  anger.  He  drove  them  forth,  while 
none  dared  to  resist  His  burning  zeal ;  nor  would  He  even  suffer  the 
peaceful  inclosure  to  be  disturbed  by  people  passing  to  and  fro  with 
vessels,  and  so  turning  it  into  a  thoroughfare.  The  dense  crowd  of 
Jews — numbering,  it  is  said,  three  millions — who  crowded  to  the  Holy 
City  in  the  week  of  the  feast,  no  doubt  made  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles 
a  worse  and  busier  scene  on  that  day  than  at  any  other  time,  and  the 
more  so  because  on  that  day,  according  to  the  law,  the  Paschal  lamb  — 
which  the  visitors  would  be  obliged  to  purchase — was  chosen  and  set 
apart.'  But  no  considerations  of  their  business  and  convenience  could 
make  it  tolerable  that  they  should  turn  His  Father's  house,  which  was 
a  house  of  prayer  for  all  nations,  into  a  place  most  like  one  of  those 
foul  caves  which  He  had  seen  so  often  in  the  Wady  Hammam,  where 
brigands  wrangled  over  their  ill-gotten  spoils.^ 

Not  till  He  had  reduced  the  Temple  to  decency  and  silence  could 
He  begin  His  customary  ministrations.  Doubtless  the  task  was  easier, 
because  it  had  already  been  once  performed.  But  when  the  miserable 
hubbub  was  over,  then  the  Temple  resumed  what  should  have  been  its 
normal  aspect.  Suflferers  came  to  Him,  and  He  healed  them.  Listeners 
in  hundreds  thronged  round  Him,  were  astonished  at  His  doctrine,  hunof 
upon  His  lips.^  The  very  children  of  the  Temple,  in  their  innocent  de- 
light,   continued    the    glad    Hosannas  which    had    welcomed    Him.      The 

1  Exod.  xii.  I — 5. 

2  "  Cave  of  brigands  "  (Mordergrube,  Luther)  is  much  stronger  than  "den  of  thieves;"  and  if  the 
*'  House  of  Prayer  "  reminded  them  of  Jer.  vii.  6,  as  well  as  Isa.  Ivi.  7,  it  would  recall  ideas  of  "  innocent 
blood,"  as  well  as  of  greedy  gain.  The  Temple  was  destined  in  a  few  more  years  to  become  yet  more  em- 
phatically a  "  murderer's  cave,"  when  the  sicarii  made  it  the  scene  of  their  atrocities.  "  The  sanctuary," 
says  Josephus,  "was  now  become  a  refuge,  and  a  shop  of  tyranny."  "Certainly,"  says  Ananus  in  his 
speech,  "it  had  been  good  for  me  to  die  before  I  had  seen  the  house  of  God  full  of  so  many  abomi- 
nations, or  these  sacred  places,  that  ought  not  to  be  trodden  upon  at  random,  filled  with  the  feet  of  ihese 
blood-shedding  villains."  "  When  any  of  the  Zealots  were  wounded,  he  went  up  into  the  Temple,  and 
defiled  that  sacred  floor  with  his  blood."  "  To  say  all  in  a  word,  no  passion  was  so  entirely  lost  among 
them  as  mercy." 

3  Luke  xix.  48. 


470  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Chief  Priests,  and  Scribes,  and  Pharisees,  and  leading  people  saw,  and 
despised,  and  wondered,  and  perished.  They  could  but  gnash  their  teeth 
in  their  impotence,  daring  to  do  nothing,  saying  to  each  other  that  they 
could  do  nothing,  for  the  whole  world  had  gone  after  Him,  yet  hoping 
still  that  their  hour  would  come,  and  the  power  of  darkness.  If  the^' 
(Ventured  to  say  one  word  to  Him,  they  had  to  retire  abashed  and  frus- 
trated by  His  calm  reply.  They  angrily  called  His  attention  to  the  cry 
of  the  boys  in  the  Temple  courts,  and  said,  "  Hearest  Thou  what  these 
say?"  Perhaps  they  were  boys  employed  in  the  musical  services  of  the 
Temple,  and  if  so  the  priestly  party  would  be  still  more  enraged.  But 
Jesus  calmly  protected  the  children  from  their  unconcealed  hatred.  "Yea," 
He  answered,  "have  ye  never  read.  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and 
sucklings  Thou  hast  perfected  praise?"' 

So  in  high  discourse,  amid  the  vain  attempts  of  His  enemies  to  annoy 
and  hinder  Him,  the  hours  of  that  memorable  day  passed  by.  And  it 
was  marked  by  one  more  deeply  interesting  incident.  Struck  by  all  they 
had  seen  and  heard,  some  Greeks — probably  Jewish  proselytes  attracted 
to  Jerusalem  by  the  feast — came  to  Philip,  and  asked  him  to  procure  for 
them  a  private  interview  with  Jesus.'  Chaldeans  from  the  Ecst  had 
sought  His  cradle ;  these  Greeks  from  the  West  came  to  His  cross.^ 
Who  they  were,  and  why  they  sought  Him,  we  know  not.  An  interest- 
ing tradition,  but  one  on  which  we  can  lay  no  stress,  says  that  they  were 
emissaries  from  Abgarus  V.,  King  of  Edessa,  who,  having  been  made 
aware  of  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  dangers  to  which  He  was 
now  exposed,  sent  these  emissaries  to  offer  Him  an  asylum  in  his 
dominions.  The  legend  adds  that,  though  Jesus  declined  the  offer.  He 
rewarded  the  faith  of  Abgarus  by  writing  him  a  letter,  and  healing  him 
of  a  sickness. 

St.  John  mentions  nothing  of  these  circumstances  ;  he  does  not  even 
tell  us  why  these  Greeks  came  to  Philip  in  particular.  As  Bethsaida 
was  the  native  town  of  this  apostle,  and  as  many  Jews  at  this  period 
had  adopted  Gentile  appellations,  especially  those  which  were  current  in 
the  family  of  Herod,  we  cannot  attach  much  importance  to  the  Greek 
form  of    his  name.       It    is   an    interesting  indication  of    the  personal  awe 

1  Ps.  viii.  2.     Did  they  recall  the  sequel  of  the  verse,  "because  of  Thine  enemies,  that  Thou   mightest 
etill  the  enemy  and  the  avenger?" 

2  John  xii.  20 — 50. 

3  They  are  called  Greeks,  and  were  therefore  Gentiles.     That  they  were  proselytes  appears  from  John 
xii.  20  (comp.  Acts  viii.  27). 


PALM  SUNDAY.  471 

which  the  Apostles  lelt  for  their  Master,  that  Philip  did  not  at  once 
venture  to  grant  their  request.  He  went  and  consulted  his  fellow-towns- 
man Andrew,  and  the  two  Apostles  then  made  known  the  wish  of  the 
Greeks  to  Jesus.  Whether  they  actually  introduced  the  inquirers  into 
His  presence  we  cannot  tell,  but  at  any  rate  He  saw  in  the  incident  a 
fresh  sign  that  the  hour  was  come  when  His  name  should  be  glorified. 
His  answer  was  to  the  effect  that  as  a  grain  of  wheat  must  die  before 
it  can  bring  forth  fruit,  so  the  road  to  His  glory  lay  through  humilia- 
tion, and  they  who  would  follow  Him  must  be  prepared  at  all  times  to 
follow  Him  even  to  death.  As  He  contemplated  that  approaching  death, 
the  human  horror  of  it  struggled  with  the  ardor  of  His  obedience;  and 
conscious  that  to  face  that  dread  hour  was  to  conquer  it,  He  cried, 
"  Father,  glorify  Thy  name  !  "  Then  for  the  third  time  in  His  life  came 
a  voice  from  heaven,  which  said,  "  I  have  both  glorified  it,  and  will 
glorify  it  again."'  St.  John  frankly  tells  us  that  that  Voice  did  not 
sound  alike  to  all.  The  common  multitude  took  it  but  for  a  passing 
peal  of  thunder;  others  said, '"An  angel  spake  to  Him;"  the  Voice  was 
articulate  only  to  the  few.  But  Jesus  told  them  that  the  Voice  was  for 
their  sakes,  not  for  His  ;  for  the  judgment  of  the  world,  its  conviction  of 
sin  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  was  now  at  hand,  and  the  Prince  of  this  world 
should  be  cast  out.  He  should  be  lifted  up,  like  the  brazen  serpent 
in  the  wilderness,  and  -^en  so  exalted  He  should  draw  all  men  unto 
Him.  The  people  were  perplexed  at  these  dark  allusions.  They  asked 
Him  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  His  saying  that  "the  Son  of  Man 
should  be  lifted  up?"  If  it  meant  violently  taken  away  by  a  death  of 
shame,  how  could  this  be  ?  Was  not  the  Son  of  Man  a  title  of  the 
Messiah  ?  and  did  not  the  prophet  imply  that  the  reign  of  Messiah 
would  be  eternal  ?  The  true  answer  to  their  query  could  only  be  re- 
ceived by  spiritual  hearts — they  were  unprepared  for  it,  and  would  only 
have  been  offended  and  shocked  by  it  ;  therefore  Jesus  did  not  answer 
them.  He  only  bade  them  walk  in  the  light  during  the  very  little  while 
that  it  should  still  remain  with  them,  and  so  become  the  children  of 
light.  He  was  come  as  a  light  into  the  world,  and  the  words  which  He 
spake  should  judge  those  who  rejected  Him  ;  for  those  words — every 
brief  answer,  every  long  discourse — were  from  the  Father  ;  sunbeams 
from  the  Father  of  Lights  ;  life-giving  rays  from  the  Life  Eternal.^ 

1  John  xii.  28. 

2  John  xii.  44 — 50. 


472 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


But  all  these  glorious  and  healing  truths  were  dull  to  blinded  eyes, 
and  dead  to  hardened  hearts ;  and  even  the  few  of  higher  rank  and  wider 
culture  who  partially  understood  and  partially  believed  them,  yet  dared 
not  confess  Him,  because  to  confess  Him  was  to  incur  the  terrible  <r//^rtv« 
of  the  Sanhedrin  ;  and  this  they  would  not  face— loving  the  praise  of 
men  more  than  the  praise  of  God. 

Thus  a  certain  sadness  and  sense  of  rejection  fell  even  on  the  evening 
of  the  Day  of  Triumph.  It  was  not  safe  for  Jesus  to  stay  in  the  city, 
nor  was  it  in  accordance  with  His  wishes.  He  retired  secretly  from  the 
Temple,  hid  Himself  from  His  watchful  enemies,  and,  protected  as  yet 
outside  the  city  walls  by  the  enthusiasm  of  His  Galilean  followers,  "went 
out  unto  Bethany  with  the  Twelve."  But  it  is  very  probable  that  while 
He  bent  His  steps  in  the  direction  of  Bethany,  He  did  not  actually 
enter  the  village  ;  for,  on  this  occasion.  His  object  seems  to  have  been 
concealment,  which  would  hardly  have  been  secured  by  returning  to  the 
well-known  house  where  so  many  had  seen  Him  at  the  banquet  on  the 
previous  evening.  It  is  more  likely  that  tie  sought  shelter  with  His 
disciples  by  the  olive-sprinkled  slope  of  the  hill,  not  far  from  the  spot 
where  the  roads  meet  which  lead  to  the  little  village.  He  was  not  un- 
accustomed to  nights  in  the  open  air,  and  He  and  the  Apostles,  wrapped 
in  their  outer  garments,  could  sleep  soundly  and  peacefully  on  the  green 
grass  under  the  sheltering  trees.  The  shadow  of  the  traitor  fell  on  Him 
and  on  that  little  band.  Did  he  too  sleep  as  calnfly  as  the  rest  ?  Perhaps  : 
for  "  remorse  may  disturb  the  slumbers  of  a  man  who  is  dabbling  with 
his  first  experiences  of  wrong;  and  when  the  pleasure  has  been  tasted 
and  is  gone,  and  nothing  is  left  of  the  crime  but  the  ruin  which  it  has 
wrought,  then  too  the  Furies  take  their  seats  upon  the  midnight  pillow. 
But  the  meridian  of  evil  is,  for  the  most  part,  left  nnvexed ;  and  when  a 
man  has  chosen  his  road,  he  is  left  alone  to  follow  it  to  the  end" ' 

I  Froude,  JUst.  of  Engl.  viii.  30. 


TEACHING   HUMILITY    BY    A    LITTLE    CHILD  —Luke  ix.  47. 


CHAPTER    L. 


MONDAY    IN    PASSION    WEEK A    DAY    OF    PARABLES. 


"Apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver." — Prov,  xxv.  ii. 

ISING  from  His  bivouac  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Bethany  while  it  was  still  early,  Jesus  returned 
at  once  to  the  city  and  the  Temple  ;  and  on  His 
way  He  felt  hungry.  Monday  and  Thursday  were 
kept  by  the  scrupulous  religionists  of  the  day  as 
voluntary  fasts,  and  to  this  the  Pharisee  alludes 
when  he  says  in  the  Parable,  "  I  fast  twice  in  the 
week."  But  this  fasting  was  a  mere  "work  of 
supererogation,"  neither  commanded  nor  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Law  or  the  Prophets,  and  it  was 
alien  alike  to  the  habits  and  precepts  of  One  who 
came,  not  by  external  asceticisms,  but  with  abso- 
lute self-surrender,  to  ennoble  by  Divine  sinless- 
ness  the  common  life  of  men.  It  may  be  that  in 
His  compassionate  eagerness  to  teach  His  people.  He  had  neglected  the 
common  wants  of  life  ;  it  may  be  that  there  were  no  means  of  procuring 
food  in  the  fields  where  He  had  spent  the  night ;  it  may  be  again  that 
the  hour  of  prayer  and  morning  sacrifice  had  not  yet  come,  before  which 
the  Jews  did  not  usually  take  a  meal.  But,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
cause,  Jesus  hungered,  so  as  to  be  driven  to  look  for  wayside  fruit  to 
sustain  and  refresh  Him  for  the  day's  work.  A  few  dates  or  figs,  a  piece 
of  black  bread,  a  draught  of  water,  are  sufficient  at  any  time  for  an  Ori- 
ental's simple  meal. 

There  are  trees  in  abundance  even  now  throughout  this  region,  but 
not  the  numerous  palms,  and  figs,  and  walnut-trees  which  made  the 
vicinity  of  Jerusalem  like  one  umbrageous  park,  before  they  were  cut 
down  by  Titus,  in  the  operations  of  the  siege.  Fig-trees  especially  were 
planted  by  the  roadside,  because  the  dust  was  thought  to  facilitate  their 
growth,  and  their  refreshing  fruit  was    common   property.      At  a  distance 


474  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

in  front  of  Him  Jesus  caught  sight  of  a  solitary  fig-tree,  and  although 
the  ordinary  season  at  which  figs  ripened  had  not  yet  arrived,  yet,  as  it 
was  clad  with  verdure,  and  as  the  fruit  of  a  fig  sets  before  the  leaves 
unfold,  this  tree  looked  more  than  usually  promising.  Its  rich  large 
leaves  seemed  to  show  that  it  was  fruitful,  and  their  unusually  early 
growth  that  it  was  not  only  fruitful  but  precociously  vigorous.  There 
was  every  chance,  therefore,  of  finding  upon  it  either  the  late  violet- 
colored  kermouses,  or  autumn  figs,  that  often  remained  hanging  on  the 
trees  all  through  the  winter,  and  even  until  the  new  spring  leaves  had 
come,  or  the  delicious  bakkooroth,  the  first  ripe  on  the  fig-tree,  of  which 
Orientals  are  particularly  fond.  The  difficulty  raised  about  St.  Mark's 
expression,  that  "  the  time  of  figs  was  not  yet,"  is  wholly  needless.  On 
the  plains  of  Gennesareth,  Jesus  must  have  been  accustomed — if  we  may 
trust  Josephus — to  see  the  figs  hanging  ripe  on  the  trees  every  month  in 
the  year  excepting  January  and  February,  and  there  is  to  this  day,  in 
Palestine,  a  kind  of  white  or  early  fig  which  ripens  in  spring,  and  much 
before  the  ordinary  or  black  fig.  On  many  grounds,  therefore,  Jesus 
might  well  have  expected  to  find  a  few  figs  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of 
hunger  on  this  fair-promising  leafy  tree,  although  the  ordinary  fig-season 
had  not  yet  arrived. 

But  when  He  came  up  to  it.  He  was  disappointed.  The  sap  was 
circulating ;  the  leaves  made  a  fair  show  ;  but  of  fruit  there  was  none. 
Fit  emblem  of- a  hypocrite,  whose  eternal  semblance  is  a  delusion  and 
sham— fit  emblem  of  the  nation  in  whom  the  ostentatious  profession  of 
religion  brought  forth  no  "fruit  of  good  living" — the  tree  was  barren. 
And  it  was  hopelessly  barren  ;  for  had  it  been  fruitful  the  previous  year, 
there  would  still  have  been  some  of  the  kermouses  hidden  under  those 
broad  leaves  ;  and  had  it  been  fruitful  /his  year,  the  bakkooroth  would 
have  set  into  green  and  delicious  fragrance  before  the  leaves  appeared  ; 
but  on  this  fruitless  tree  there  was  neither  any  promise  for  the  future, 
nor  any  gleanings  from  the  past. 

And  therefore,  since  it  was  but  deceptive  and  useless,  a  barren  cumberer 
of  the  ground,  He  made  it  the  eternal  warning  against  a  life  of  hypocrisy 
continued  until  it  is  too  late,  and,  in  the  hearing  of  His  disciples,  uttered 
upon  it  the  solemn  fiat,  "Never  fruit  grow  upon  thee  more!"  Even  at 
the  word,  such  infructuous  life  as  it  possessed  was  arrested,  and  it  began 
to  wither  away. 

The  criticisms  upon  this  miracle  have  been  singularly  idle  and  singularly 


MONDAY  IN   PASSION  WEEK— A  DAY  OF  PARABLES.  475 

irreverent,  because  they  have  been  based  for  the  most  part  on  ignorance 
or  on  prejudice.  By  those  who  reject  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  it  has  been 
called  a  penal  miracle,  a  miracle  of  vengeance,  a  miracle  of  unworthy  ano-er, 
a  childish  exhibition  of  impatience  under  disappointment,  an  uncultured 
indignation  against  innocent  Nature.  No  one,  I  suppose,  who  believes 
that  the  story  represents  a  real  and  miraculous  fact,  will  daringly  arraio-n  the 
motives  of  Him  who  performed  it;  but  many  argue  that  this  is  an  untrue 
and  mistaken  story,  because  it  narrates  what  they  regard  as  an  unworthy 
display  of  anger  at  a  slight  disappointment,  and  as  a  miracle  of  destruc- 
tion which  violated  the  rights  of  the  supposed  owner  of  the  tree,  or  of 
the  multitude.  But,  as  to  the  first  objection,  surely  it  is  amply  enough 
to  say  that  every  page  of  the  New  Testament  shows  the  impossibility  of 
imagining  that  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists  had  so  poor  and  false  a  con- 
ception of  Jesus  as  to  believe  that  He  avenged  His  passing  displeasure 
on  an  irresponsible  object.  Would  He  who,  at  the  Tempter's  bidding, 
refused  to  satisfy  His  wants  by  turning  the  stones  of  the  wilderness  into 
bread,  be  represented  as  having  "flown  into  a  rage" — no  other  expression 
is  possible — with  an  unconscious  tree?  An  absurdity  so  irreverent  mio-ht 
have  been  found  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospels ;  but  had  the  Evangelists 
been  capable  of  perpetuating  it,  then,  most  unquestionably,  they  could  have 
had  neither  the  capacity  nor  the  desire  to  paint  that  Divine  and  Eternal 
portrait  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  which  their  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  the 
aid  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  enabled  them  to  present  to  the  world  for  ever, 
as  its  most  priceless  possession.  And  as  for  the  withering  of  the  tree, 
has  the  householder  of  the  parable  been  ever  severely  censured  because 
he  said  of  his  barren  fig-tree,  "  Cut  it  down,  why  cumbereth  it  the  ground  ?" 
Has  St.  John  the  Baptist  been  ever  blamed  for  violence  and  destructive- 
ness  because  he  cried,  "  And  now  also  the  ax  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the 
tree:  every  tree,  therefore,  which  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit,  is  hewn 
down  and  cast  into  the  fire?"  Or  has  the  ancient  Prophet  been  charged 
with  misrepresenting  the  character  of  God,  when  he  says,  "/,  the  Lord, 
have  dried  up  the  green  tree""-  as  well  as  "made  the  dry  tree  to  flourish?" 
When  the  hail  beats  down  the  tendrils  of  the  vineyard — when  the  lio-ht- 
ning  scathes  the  olive,  or  "splits  the  unwedgeable  and  gnarled  oak" — 
do  any  but  the  utterly  ignorant  and  brutal  begin  at  once  to  blaspheme 
against  God?  Is  it  a  crime  under  any  circumstances  to  destroy  a  useless 
tree  ?  if  not,  is  it  more  a  crime  to  do  so  by  miracle  ?     Why,  then,  is  the 

I  Ezek.  xvii.  24. 


476  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Saviour  of  the  world — to  whom  Lebanon  would  be  too  little  for  a  burnt- 
ofifering — to  be  blamed  by  petulant  critics  because  He  hastened  the  wither- 
ing of  one  barren  tree,  and  founded,  on  the  destruction  of  its  uselessness, 
three  eternal  lessons — a  symbol  of  the  destruction  of  impenitence,  a  warn- 
ino-  of  the  peril  of  hypocrisy,  an  illustration  of  the  power  of  faith  ? ' 

They  went  on  their  way,  and,  as  usual,  entered  the  Temple ;  and 
scarcely  had  they  entered  it,  when  they  were  met  by  another  indication 
of  the  intense  incessant  spirit  of  opposition  which  actuated  the  rulers  of 
Jerusalem."  A  formidable  deputation  approached  them,  imposing  alike  in 
its  numbers  and  its  stateliness.'  The  chief  priests — heads  of  the  twenty- 
four  courses — the  learned  scribes,  the  leading  rabbis,  representatives  of 
all  the  constituent  classes  of  the  Sanhedrin  were  there,  to  overawe  Him — 
whom  they  despised  as  the  poor  ignorant  Prophet  of  despicable  Naza- 
reth— with  all  that  was  venerable  in  age,  eminent  in  wisdom,  or  imposing 
in  authority  in  the  great  Council  of  the  nation.  The  people  whom  He 
was  engaged  in  teaching  made  reverent  way  for  them,  lest  they  should 
pollute  those  floating  robes  and  ample  fringes  with  a  touch  ;  and  when 
they  had  arranged  themselves  around  Jesus,  they  sternly  and  abruptly 
asked  Him,  "  By  what  authority  doest  thou  these  things,  and  who  gave 
thee  this  authority?"  They  demanded  of  Him  His  warrant  for  thus 
publicly  assuming  the  functions  of  Rabbi  and  Prophet,  for  riding  into 
Jerusalem  amid  the  hosannas  of  attendant  crowds,  for  purging  the  Temple 
of  the  traffickers,  at  whose  presence  they  connived  ?< 

The  answer  surprised  and  confounded  them.  With  that  infinite 
presence  of  mind,  to  which  the  world's  history  furnishes  no  parallel,  and 
which  remained  calm  under  the  worst    assaults,  Jesus  told  them  that  the 

1  The  many-sided  symbolism  of  the  act  would  have  been  much  more  vividly  apparent  to  those  more 
familiar  than  ourselves  with  the  ancient  prophets  (see  Hos.  ix.  lo  ;  Joel  i.  7  ;  Micah  vii.  i).  "  Even  here," 
says  Professor  Westcott,  "  in  the  moment  of  sorrowful  disappointment,  as  He  turned  to  His  disciples,  the 
word  of  judgment  became  a  word  of  promise.  Ha''e  faith  in  God,  and  whatsoever  things  ye  desire  when 
ye  pray,  believe  that  ye  recei-cvd  them — received  them  already  as  the  inspiration  of  the  wish — '  and  ye  shall 
have  them.'  "  I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  this  miracle,  because  to  some  able  and  honest  thinkers  it 
presents  a  real  difficulty.  Those  who  do  not  see  in  it  the  lessons  which  I  have  indicated  (of  which  the 
first  two  are  aviiy  implied,  not  formulated,  in  the  Gospels),  regard  it  as  a  literal  construction  of  an  illus- 
trative metaphor — a. parable  of  the  power  of  faith  which  has  got  mythically  developed  into  a  miracle.  Better 
this,  than  that  it  should  lead  them  to  unworthy  views  of  "Him  whom  the  Father  hath  sent  ;"  but  if  the 
above  views  be  right,  the  difficulty  does  not  seem  to  me  by  any  means  insuperable. 

2  It  will  be  observed  that  I  am  following  in  the  main  the  order  of  the  eye-witness,  St.  Matthew,  who, 
however,  pauses  to  finish  the  story  of  the  fig-tree,  the  sequel  of  which  belongs  to  the  next  day. 

3  Mark  xi.  27. 

4  Mark  xi.  27 — 33  ;  Matt.  xxi.  23—27  ;  Luke  xx.  i — 8.  The  Sanhedrin  had  sent  a  similar  deputation 
10  John  the  Baptist,  but  in  a  less  hostile  spirit. 


MONDAY  IN  PASSION  WEEK— A  DAY  OF  PARABLES.  477 

answer  to  their  question  depended  on  the  answer  which  they  were  pre- 
pared to  give  to  His  question.  "The  baptism  of  John,  was  it  from 
heaven,  or  of  men?"  A  sudden  pause  followed.  "Answer  me,"  said 
Jesus,  interrupting  their  whispered  colloquy.  And  surely  they,  who  had 
sent  a  commission  to  inquire  publicly  into  the  claims  of  John,  were  in  a 
position  to  answer.  But  no  answer  came.  They  knew  full  well  the  im- 
port of  the  question.  They  could  not  for  a  moment  put  it  aside  as 
irrelevant.  John  had  openly  and  emphatically  testified  to  Jesus,  had 
acknowledged  Him,  before  their  own  deputies,  not  only  as  a  Prophet, 
but  as  a  Prophet  far  greater  than  himself — nay,  more,  as  the  Prophet, 
the  Messiah.  Would  they  recognize  that  authority,  or  would  they  not? 
Clearly  Jesus  had  a  right  to  demand  their  reply  to  that  question  before 
He  could  reply  to  theirs.  But  they  could  not,  or  rather  they  would  not 
answer  that  question.  It  reduced  them  in  fact  to  a  complete  dilemma. 
They  would  not  say  "fro7n  heaven"  because  they  had  in  heart  rejected 
it;  they  dared  not  say  "of  men"  because  the  belief  in  John  (as  we  see 
even  in  Josephus)  was  so  vehement  and  so  unanimous  that  openly  to  re- 
ject him  would  have  been  to  endanger  their  personal  safety.  They  were 
reduced,  therefore — they,  the  masters  of  Israel — to  the  ignominious  ne- 
cessity of  saying,  "  We  cannot  tell." 

There  is  an  admirable  Hebrew  proverb  which  says,  "  Teach  thy 
tongue  to  say,  'I  do  not  know.'"  But  to  say  "We  do  not  know," 
in  this  instance,  was  a  thing  utterly  alien  to  their  habits,  disgraceful  to 
their  discernment,  a  death-blow  to  their  pretensions.  It  was  ignorance 
in  a  sphere  wherein  ignorance  was  for  them  inexcusable.  They,  the 
appointed  explainers  of  the  Law — they,  the  accepted  teachers  of  the 
people — they,  the  acknowledged  monopolizers  of  Scriptural  learning  and 
oral  tradition — and  yet  to  be  compelled,  against  their  real  convictions,  to 
say,  and  that  before  the  multitude,  that  they  could  not  tell  whether  a 
man  of  immense  and  sacred  influence — a  man  who  acknowledged  the 
Scriptures  which  they  explained,  and  carried  into  practice  the  customs 
which  they  reverenced — was  a  divinely  inspired  messenger  or  a  deluding 
imposter !  Were  the  lines  of  demarkation,  then,  between  the  inspired 
Prophet  {fiabi)  and  the  wicked  seducer  {mesitli)  so  dubious  and  indistinct  ? 
It  was  indeed  a  fearful  humiliation,  and  one  which  they  never  either 
forgot  or  forgave!  And  yet  how  just  was  the  retribution  which  they 
had  thus  brought  on  their  own  heads.  The  curses  which  they  had 
intended  for  another  had  recoiled  upon  themselves  ;  the  pompous  question 


478  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

which  was  to  be  an  engine  wherewith  another  should  be  crushed,  had 
sprung  back  with  sudden  rebound  to  their  own  confusion  and  shame. 

Jesus  did  not  press  upon  their  discomfiture,  though  He  well  knew—' 
as  the  form  of  His  answer  showed — that  their  "do  not  know"  was  a  "do 
not  choose  to  say."  Since,  however,  their  failure  to  answer  clearly  absolved 
Him  from  any  necessity  to  tell  them  further  about  an  authority  which, 
by  their  own  confession,  they  were  totally  incompetent  to  decide,  He 
ended  the  scene  by  simply  saying,  "  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what  authority 
I  do  these  things." 

So  they  retired  a  little  into  the  background.  He  continued  the 
instruction  of  the  people  which  they  had  interrupted,  and  began  once 
more  to  speak  to  them  in  parables,  which  both  the  multitude  and  the 
members  of  the  Sanhedrin  who  were  present  could  hardly  fail  to  under- 
stand. And  He  expressly  called  their  attention  to  what  He  was  about 
to  say.  "  What  think  ye?"  He  asked,  for  now  it  is  their  turn  to  sub- 
mit to  be  questioned  ;  and  then,  telling  them  of  the  two  sons,  of  whom 
the  one  first  flatly  refused  his  father's  bidding,  but  afterwards  repented 
and  did  it,  the  other  blandly  promised  an  obedience  which  he  never  per- 
formed, He  asked,  "Which  of  these  two  did  his  father's  will?"  They 
could  but  answer,  "the  first;"  and  He  then  pointed  out  to  them  the 
plain  and  solemn  meaning  of  their  own  answer.  It  was,  that  the  very 
publicans  and  harlots,  despite  the  apparent  open  shamelessness  of  their 
disobedience,  were  yet  showing  the7n — them,  the  scrupulous  and  highly 
reputed  legalists  of  the  holy  nation — the  way  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Yes,  these  sinners,  whom  they  despised  and  hated,  were  streaming  before 
them  through  the  door  which  was  not  vet  shut.  For  John  had  come  to 
these  Jews  on  their  own  principles  and  in  their  own  practices,'  and  they 
had  pretended  to  receive  him,  but  had  not ;  but  the  publicans  and  the 
harlots  had  repented  at  his  bidding.  For  all  their  broad  fringes  and 
conspicuous  phylacteries,  they — the  priests,  the  separatists,  the  Rabbis  of 
these  people — were  worse  in  the  sight  of  God  than  sinners  whom  they 
would  have  scorned  to  touch  with  one  of  their  fingers.  , 

Then  He  bade  them  "hear  another  parable,"  the  parable  of  the  re- 
bellious husbandmen  in  the  vineyard,  whose  fruits  they  would  not  yield. 
That  vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  was  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the 
men    of    Judah    were    His    pleasant    plants  ;="  and    they,    the  leaders   and 

1  Matt.  xxi.  28 — 32. 

2  Matt.  xxi.  33 — 46  ;  Mark  xii.  i — 12  ;  Luke  xx.  9 — 19  ;  Isa.  v.  i — 7  ;  Ps.  Ixxx. 


MONDAY  IN  PASSION  WEEK— A  DAY  OF  PARABLES.  479 

icachers,  were  those  to  whom  the  Lord  of  the  vineyard  would  naturally 
look  for  the  rendering  of  the  produce.  But  in  spite  of  all  that  He  had  done 
for  His  vineyard,  there  were  no  grapes,  or  only  wild  grapes.  "  He  looked 
for  judgment,  but  behold  oppression  ;  for  righteousness,  but  behold  a  cry." 
And  since  they  cojild  not  render  any  produce,  and  dared  not  own  the 
barren  fruitlessness  for  which  they,  the  husbandmen,  were  responsible, 
they  insulted,  and  beat,  and  wounded,  and  slew  messenger  after  messenger 
whom  the  Lord  of  the  vineyard  sent  to  them.  Last  of  all.  He  sent  His 
Son,  and  that  Son — though  they  recognized  Him,  and  could  not  but  rec- 
ognize Him — they  beat,  and  flung  forth,  and  slew.  When  the  Lord  of 
the  vineyard  came,  what  would  He  do  to  them  ?  Either  the  people,  out 
of  honest  conviction,  or  the  listening  Pharisees,  to  show  their  apparent 
contempt  for  what  they  could  not  fail  to  see  was  the  point  of  the  par- 
able, answered  that  He  would  wretchedly  destroy  those  wretches,  and  let 
out  the  vineyard  to  worthier  and  more  faithful  husbandmen.  A  second 
time  they  had  been  compelled  to  an  admission,  which  fatally,  out  of  their 
own  mouths,  condemned  themselves  ;  they  had  confessed  with  their  own 
lips  that  it  would  be  in  accordance  with  God's  justice  to  deprive  them 
of  their  exclusive  rights,  and  to  give  them  to  the  Gentiles. 

And  to  show  them  that  their  own  Scriptures  had  prophesied  of  this 
their  conduct.  He  asked  them  whether  they  had  never  read  (in  the  ii8th 
Psalm)  of  the  stone  which  the  builders  rejected,  which  nevertheless,  by 
the  marvelous  purpose  of  God,  became  the  headstone  of  the  corner  ? 
How  could  they  remain  builders  any  longer,  when  the  whole  design  of 
their  workmanship  was  thus  deliberately  overruled  and  set  aside  ?  Did 
not  their  old  Messianic  prophecy  clearly  imply  that  God  would  call  other 
builders  to  the  work  of  His  Temple  ?  Woe  to  them  who  even  stumbled — 
as  they  were  doing — at  that  rejected  stone ;  but  even  yet  there  was 
time  for  them  to  avoid  the  more  crushing  annihilation  of  those  on  whom 
that  stone  should  fall.  To  reject  Him  in  His  humanity  and  humiliation 
involved  pain  and  loss  ;  but  to  be  found  still  rejecting  Him  when  He 
should  come  again  in  His  glory,  would  not  this  be  "utter  destruction 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  ? "  To  sit  on  the  seat  of  judgment  and 
condemn  Him — this  should  be  ruin  to  them  and  their  nation  ;  but  to  be 
condemned  by  Him,  would  not  this  be  to  be  "ground  to  powder?" 

They  saw  now,  more  clearly  than  ever,  the  whole  bent  and  drift  of 
these  parables,  and  longed  for  the  hour  of  vengeance !  But,  as  yet,  fear 
restrained  them  ;  for,  to  the  multitude,  Christ  was  still  a  prophet. 


48o  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

One  more  warning  utterance  He  spoke  on  this  Day  of  Parables — 
the  Parable  of  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son.  In  its  basis  and  frame- 
work it  closely  resembled  the  Parable  of  the  Great  Supper  uttered,  dur- 
ing His  last  journey,  at  a  Pharisee's  house  ;  but  in  many  of  its  details, 
and  in  its  entire  conclusion,  it  was  different.  Here  the  ungrateful  sub- 
jects who  receive  the  invitation,  not  only  make  light  of  it,  and  pursue 
undisturbed  their  worldly  avocations,  but  some  of  them  actually  insult 
and  murder  the  messenger  who  had  invited  them,  and — a  point  at  which 
the  history  merges  into  prophecy — are  destroyed  and  their  city  burned. 
And  the  rest  of  the  story  points  to  yet  further  scenes,  pregnant  with 
still  deeper  meanings.  Others  are  invited  ;  the  wedding  feast  is  furnished 
with  guests  both  bad  and  good ;  the  king  comes  in,  and  notices  one 
who  had  thrust  himself  into  the  company  in  his  own  rags,  without  provid- 
ing or  accepting  the  wedding  garment,  which  the  commonest  courtesy 
required.' 

This  rude,  intruding,  presumptuous  guest  is  cast  forth  by  attendant 
angels  into  outer  darkness,  where  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of 
teeth  ;  and  then  follows,  for  the  last  time,  the  warning  urged  in  vary- 
ing similitudes,  with  a  frequency  commensurate  to  its  importance,  that 
"  many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen." 

Teachings  so  obvious  in  their  import  filled  the  minds  of  the  leading 
Priests  and  Pharisees  with  a  more  and  more  bitter  rage.  He  had  begun 
the  day  by  refusing  to  answer  their  dictatorial  question,  and  by  more  than 
justifying  that  refusal.  His  counter-question  had  not  only  shown  His 
calm  superiority  to  the  influence  which  they  so  haughtily  exercised  over 
the  people,  but  had  reduced  them  to  the  ignominious  silence  of  an  hypoc- 
risy, which  was  forced  to  shield  itself  under  the  e.xcuse  of  incompetence. 
Then  followed  His  Parables.  In  the  first  of  these  He  had  convicted  them 
of  false  professions,  unaccompanied  by  action  ;  in  the  second.  He  had 
depicted  the  trust  and  responsibility  of  their  office,  and  had  indicated  a 
terrible  retribution  for  its  cruel  and  profligate  abuse  ;  in  the  third,  He 
had  indicated  alike  the  punishment  which  would  ensue  upon  a  violent 
rejection  of  His  invitations,  and  the  impossibility  of  deceiving  the  eye 
of  His  Heavenly  Father  by  a  mere  nominal  and  pretended  acceptance. 
Lying  lip-service,  faithless  rebellion,  blind  presumption,  such  were  the  sins 
which  He  had  striven  to  bring  home  to  their  consciences.  And  this  was 
but  a  superficial  outline  of   all  the  heart-searching  power  with  which  His 

I  Zeph.   i.   8. 


THE    PARAiLE 


MONDAY  IN  PASSION  WEEK— A  DAY  OF  PARABLES.  481 

words  had  been  to  them  Hke  a  sword  of  the  Spirit,  piercing  even  to  the 
dividing  of  the  joints  and  marrow.  But  to  bad  men  nothing  is  so  mad- 
dening as  the  exhibition  of  their  own  self-deception.  So  great  was  the 
hardly-concealed  fury  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  that  they  would  gladly 
have  seized  Him  that  very  hour.  Fear  restrained  them,  and  He  was 
suffered  to  retire  unmolested  to  His  quiet  resting-place.  But  either  that 
night  or  early  on  the  following  morning.  His  enemies  held  another 
council — at  this  time  they  seem  to  have  held  them  almost  daily — to  see 
if  they  could  not  make  one  more  combined,  systematic,  overwhelming 
effort  "to  entangle  Him  in  His  talk,"  to  convict  Him  of  ignorance  or 
of  error,  to  shake  His  credit  with  the  multitude,  or  embroil  Him  in 
dangerous  relations  towards  the  civil  authority.  We  shall  see  in  the  fol- 
lowing chapter  the  result  of  their  machinations. 


CHAPTER    LI. 

THE    DAY    OF    TEMPTATIONS THE    LAST    AND     GREATEST     DAY     OF     THE     PUBLIC 

MINISTRY    OF    JESUS. 


'And  the  door  was  shut."— Matt.  xxv.  io. 

I 

N  THE  following  morning  Jesus  rose  with  His 
disciples  to  enter  for  the  last  time  the  Temple 
Courts.  On  their  way  they  passed  the  solitary 
fig-tree,  no  longer  gay  with  its  false  leafy 
garniture,  but  shriveled,  from  the  root  upwards, 
in  every  bough.  The  quick  eye  of  Peter  was 
the  first  to  notice  it,  and  he  exclaimed,  "  Master, 
behold  the  fig-tree  which  thou  cursedst  is 
withered  away."  The  disciples  stopped  to  look 
at  it,  and  to  express  their  astonishment  at  the 
rapidity  with  which  the  denunciation  had  been 
fulfilled.  What  struck  them  most  was  the  power  of  Jesus; 
the  deeper  meanings  of  His  symbolic  act  they  seem  for  the 
time  to  have  missed ;  and,  leaving  these  lessons  to  dawn 
upon  them  gradually,  Jesus  addressed  the  mood  of  their 
minds  at  the  moment,  and  told  them  that  if  they  would  but  have  faith 
in  God — faith  which  should  enable  them  to  offer  up  their  prayers  with 
perfect  and  unwavering  confidence — they  should  not  only  be  able  to  per- 
form such  a  wonder  as  that  done  to  the  fig-tree,  but  even  "  if  they  bade 
this  mountain" — and  as  He  spoke  He  may  have  pointed  to  Olivet — "to 
be  removed,  and  cast  into  the  sea,  it  should  obey  them."  But,  since  in 
this  one  instance  the  power  had  been  put  forth  to  destroy.  He  added  a 
very  important  warning.  They  were  not  to  suppose  that  this  emblematic 
act  gave  them  any  license  to  wield  the  sacred  powers  which  faith  and 
prayer  would  bestow  on  them,  for  purposes  of  anger  or  vengeance  ;  nay, 
no  power  was  possible  to  the  heart  that  knew  not  how  to  forgive,  and 
the  jifi/orgivhtg  heart  could  never  be  forgiven.  The  sword,  and  the 
famine,  and  the    pestilence  were  to  be  no  instruments  for  them  to  wield. 


THE  DAY  OF  TEMPTATIONS.  483 

nor  were  they  even  to  dream  of  evoking  against  their  enemies  the  fire 
of  heaven  or  the  "icy  wind  of  death."'  The  secret  of  successful  prayer 
was  faith  ;  the  road  to  faith  in  God  lay  through  pardon  of  transgression  ; 
pardon  was  possible  to  them  alone  who  were  ready  to  pardon  others. 

He  was  scarcely  seated  in  the  Temple  when  the  result  of  the  mach- 
inations of  His  enemies  on  the  previous  evening  showed  itself  in  a  new 
kind  of  strategy,  involving  one  of  the  most  perilous  and  deeply  laid  of 
all  the  schemes  to  entrap  and  ruin  Him.  The  deadly  nature  of  the  plot 
appeared  in  the  fact  that,  to  carry  it  out,  the  Pharisees  were  united  in 
ill-omened  conjunction  with  the  Herodians  ;  so  that  two  parties,  usually 
ranked  against  each  other  in  strong  opposition,  were  now  reconciled  in 
a  conspiracy  for  the  ruin  of  their  common  enemy.  Devotees  and 
sycophants — hierarchical  scrupulosity  and  political  indifferentism — the 
school  of  theocratic  zeal  and  the  school  of  crafty  expediency — were  thus 
united  to  dismay  and  perplex  Him.  The  Herodians  occur  but  seldom  in 
the  Gospel  narrative.  Their  very  designation — a  Latinized  adjective 
applied  to  the  Greek-speaking  courtiers  of  an  Edomite  prince  who,  by 
Roman  intervention,  had  become  a  Judean  king — showed  at  once  their 
hybrid  origin.  Their  existence  had  mainly  a  political  significance,  and 
they  stood  outside  the  current  of  religious  life,  except  so  far  as  their 
Hellenizing  tendencies  and  worldly  interests  led  them  to  show  an  osten- 
tatious disregard  for  the  Mosaic  law.'  They  were,  in  fact,  mere  provin- 
cial courtiers  ;  men  who  basked  in  the  sunshine  of  a  petty  tyranny  which, 
for  their  own  personal  ends,  they  were  anxious  to  uphold.  To  strengthen 
the  family  of  Herod  by  keeping  it  on  good  terms  with  Roman  imperialism, 
and  to  effect  this  good  understanding  by  repressing  every  distinctively 
Jewish  aspiration — this  was  their  highest  aim.  And  in  order  to  do  this 
they  Graecized  their  Semitic  names,  adopted  ethnic  habits,  frequented 
amphitheaters,  familiarly  accepted  the  symbols  of  heathen  supremacy, 
even  went  so  far  as  to  obliterate,  by  such  artificial  means  as  they  could, 
the  distinctive  and  covenant  symbol  of  Hebrew  nationality.  That  the 
Pharisees  should  tolerate  even  the  most  temporary  partnership  with  such 
men  as  these,  whose  very  existence  was  a  violent  outrage  on  their  most 
cherished  prejudices,  enables  us  to  gauge  more  accurately  the  extreme 
virulence  of  hatred  with  which  Jesus  had  inspired  them.  And  that  hatred 
was  destined    to    become    deadlier    still.     It  was  already  at  red-heat  ;   the 

1  Some  suppose  that  a  breath  of  simoom  had  been  the  agent  in  withering  the  fig-tree. 

2  Their  attempt  to  represent  Herod  the  Great  as  the  Messiah  (!)  was  a  thing  of  the  past.     The  genuitu 
Sanbedrin,  urging  the  command  of  Deut.  xvii.  15,  had  unanimously  appealed  against  Herod 


484  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

words  and  deeds  of  this  day  were  to  raise  it  to  its  whitest  intensity 
of  wrath. 

The  Herodians  might  come  before  Jesus  without  raising  a  suspicion 
of  sinister  motives  ;  but  the  Pharisees,  astutely  anxious  to  put  Him  off 
His  guard,  did  not  come  to  Him  in  person.  They  sent  some  of  their 
younger  scholars,  who  (already  adepts  in  hypocrisy)  were  to  approach 
Him  as  though  in  all  the  guileless  simplicity  of  an  inquiring  spirit.'  They 
evidently  designed  to  raise  the  impression  that  a  dispute  had  occurred 
between  them  and  the  Herodians,  and  that  they  desired  to  settle  it  by 
referring  the  decision  of  the  question  at  issue  to  the  final  and  higher 
authority  of  the  Great  Prophet.  They  came  to  Him  circumspectly, 
deferentially,  courteously.  "Rabbi,"  they  said  to  Him  with  flattering 
earnestness,  "  we  know  that  thou  art  true,  and  teachest  the  way  of  God 
m  truth,  neither  carest  thou  for  any  man ;  for  thou  regardest  not  the 
person  of  men."  It  was  as  though  they  would  entreat  Him,  without  fear 
or  favor,  confidentially  to  give  them  His  private  opinion  ;  and  as  though 
they  really  wanted  His  opinion  for  their  own  guidance  in  a  moral  ques- 
tion of  practical  importance,  and  were  quite  sure  that  He  alone  could 
resolve  their  distressing  uncertainty.  But  why  all  this  sly  undulatory 
approach  and  serpentine  ensalivation  ?  The  forked  tongue  and  the 
envenomed  fang  appeared  in  a  moment.  "Tell  us,  therefore" — since  you 
are  so  wise,  so  true,  so  courageous — "tell  us,  therefore,  is  it  lawful  to 
give  tribute  to  Caesar,  or  not?"  This  capitation  tax,  which  wc  all  so 
much  detest,  but  the  legality  of  which  these  Herodians  support,  ought 
we,  or  ought  we  not,  to  pay  it  ?  Which  of  us  is  in  the  right  ? — we  who 
loathe  and  resent,  or  the   Herodians  who  delight  in  it?^ 

He  mtist,  they  thought,  answer  "Yes"  or  "No;"  there  is  no  possible 
escape  from  a  plain  question  so  cautiously,  sincerely,  and  respectfully 
put.  Perhaps  He  will  answer,  "  Yes,  it  is  lawful."  If  so,  all  appre- 
hension of  Him  on  the  part  of  the  Herodians  will  be  removed,  for  then 
He  will  not  be  likely  to  endanger  them  or  their  views.  For  although 
there  is  something  which  looks  dangerous  in  this  common  enthusiasm  for 
Him,  yet  if  one,  whom  they  take  to  be  the  Messiah,  should  openly  ad« 
here  to  a  heathen  tyranny,  and  sanction  its  most  galling  imposition,  such 
a  decision  will  at  once  explode  and  evaporate  any  regard  which  the  people 
may  feel  for  Him.     If,  on  the  other  hand,  as  is  all  but  certain,  He  should 

1  St.  Luke  (xx.  20)  calls  them   "  Hers  in  ambush."     Comp.  Job  xxxi.  9. 

2  Matt.  xxii.  13 — 22  ;  Luke  xx.  19 — 26  ;  Mark  xii.  13 — 17. 


THE  DAY  OF   l  tMPTATIONS.  4^5 

adopt  the  views  of  His  countryman  Judas  the  Gaulonite,  and  answer, 
''No,  it  is  ftoi  law/til"  then,  in  that  case  too,  we  are  equally  rid  of  Him; 
for  then  He  is  in  open  rebellion  against  the  Roman  power,  and  these 
new  Herodian  friends  of  ours  can  at  once  hand  Him  over  to  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Procurator.  Pontius  Pilatus  will  deal  very  roughly  with 
His  pretensions,  and  will,  if  need  be,  without  the  slightest  hesitation, 
mingle  His  blood,  as  he  has  done  the  blood  of  other  Galileans,  with  the 
blood  of  the  sacrifices. 

They  must  have  awaited  the  answer  with  breathless  interest ;  but  even 
if  they  succeeded  in  concealing  the  hate  which  gleamed  in  their  eyes, 
Jesus  at  once  saw  the  sting  and  heard  the  hiss  of  the  Pharisaic  serpent. 
They  had  fawned  on  Him  with  their  "Rabbi,"  and  "true,"  and  "im- 
partial," and  "fearless;"  He  "blights  them  with  the  flash"  of  one  indig- 
nant word,  ''Hypocrites!"  That  word  must  have  undeceived  their  hopes, 
and  crumbled  their  craftiness  into  dust.  "Why  tempt  ye  me,  ye  hypo- 
crites? Bring  me  the  tribute-money."'  They  would  not  be  likely  to  carry 
with  them  the  hated  Roman  coinage  with  its  heathen  symbols,  though 
they  might  have  been  at  once  able  to  produce  from  their  girdles  the 
Temple  shekel.  But  they  would  only  have  to  step  outside  the  Court  of 
the  Gentiles,  and  borrow  from  the  money-changers'  tables  a  current 
Roman  coin.  While  the  people  stood  round  in  wondering  silence  they 
brought  Him  a  denarius,  and  put  it  in  His  hand.  On  one  side  were 
stamped  the  haughty,  beautiful  features  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius,  with 
all  the  wicked  scorn  upon  the  lip  ;  on  the  obverse  his  title  of  Pontifcx 
Maximns.  It  was  probably  due  to  mere  accident  that  the  face  of  the 
cruel,  dissolute  tyrant  was  on  this  particular  coin,  for  the  Romans,  with 
that  half-contemptuous  concession  to  national  superstitions  which  character- 
ized their  rule,  had  allowed  the  Jews  to  have  struck  for  their  particular 
use  a  coinage  which  recorded  the  name  without  bearing  the  likeness  of 
the  reigning  emperor.  "Whose  image  and  superscription  is  this?"  He 
asked.  They  say  unto  Him,  "Caesar's."  There,  then,  was  the  simplest 
possible  solution  of  their  cunning  question.  "Render,  therefore,  ttnto 
Ccesar  the  things  that  are  Ccesar  s."  That  alone  might  have  been  enough, 
for  it  implied  that  their  national  acceptance  of  this  coinage  answered 
their  question,  and  revealed  its  emptiness.  The  very  word  which  He  used 
conveyed  the  lesson.  They  had  asked,  "Is  it  lawful  to  give?"  He  cor- 
rects  them,  and   says,  "Render" — "Give  back."     It  was  not  a  voluntary 

I  Mark  xii.  15,  16. 


486  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

gift,  but  a  legal  due  ;  not  a  cheerful  offering,  but  a  political  necessity. 
It  was  perfectly  understood  among  the  Jews,  and  was  laid  down  in  the 
distinctest  language  by  their  greatest  Rabbis  in  later  days,  that  to  accept 
the  coinage  of  any  king  was  to  acknowledge  his  supremacy.  By  accept- 
ing the  denarius,  therefore,  as  a  current  coin  they  were  openly  declaring 
that  Caesar  was  their  sovereign,  and  they — the  very  best  of  them — had 
settled  the  question  that  it  was  lawful  to  pay  the  poll-tax,  by  habitually 
doing  so.  It  was  their  duty,  then,  to  obey  the  power  which  they  had 
deliberately  chosen,  and  the  tax,  under  these  circumstances,  only  repre- 
sented an  equivalent  for  the  advantages  which  they  received.  But  Jesus 
could  not  leave  them  with  this  lesson  only.  He  added  the  far  deeper 
and  weightier  words — "  atid  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's."  To  Caesar 
you  owe  the  coin  which  you  have  admitted  as  the  symbol  of  his  authority, 
and  which  bears  his  image  and  superscription  ;  to  God  you  owe  your- 
selves. Nothing  can  more  fully  reveal  the  depth  of  hypocrisy  in  these 
Pharisaic  questioners  than  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the  Divine  answer, 
and  in  spite  of  their  own  secret  and  cherished  convictions,  they  yet 
made  it  a  ground  of  clamorous  accusation  against  Jesus,  that  He  had 
"forbidden  to  give  tribute  unto  CcBsar ! " 

Amazed  and  humiliated  at  the  sudden  and  total  frustration  of  a 
plan  which  seemed  irresistible — compelled,  in  spite  of  themselves,  to  ad- 
mire the  guileless  wisdom  which  had  in  an  instant  broken  loose  from  the 
meshes  of  their  sophistical  malice — they  sullenly  retired.  There  was 
nothing  which  even  they  could  take  hold  of  in  His  words.  But  now,  unde- 
terred by  this  striking  failure,  the  Sadducees  thought  that  they  might 
have  better  success.'  There  was  something  more  supercilious  and  off- 
hand in  the  question  which  they  proposed^  and  they  came  in  a  spirit  of 
less  burning  hatred,  but  of  more  sneering  scorn.  Hitherto  these  cold 
Epicureans  had,  for  the  most  part,  despised  and  ignored  the  Prophet  of 
Nazareth.''  Supported  as  a  sect  by  the  adhesion  of  some  of  the  highest 
priests,  as  well  as  by  some  of  the  wealthiest  citizens — on  better  terms  than 
the  Pharisees  both  with  the  Herodian  and  the  Roman  power — they  were, 

1  Matt.  xxii.  23 — 33  ;  Mark  xii.  18 — 27  ;  Luke  xx.  27 — 39.  Hitzig  ingeniously  conjectures  that  the 
narrative  of  the  Woman  taken  in  Adultery  belongs  to  this  place,  so  that  there  would  have  been  on  this  day 
three  separate  temptations  of  Christ — the  fixiX  political,  the  second  doctrinal,  the  third  speculative.  But  though 
Lange,  Keim,  EUicott  and  others  approve  of  this  conjecture,  it  seems  to  me  to  have  no  probability.  There 
is  no  shadow  of  external  evidence  in  its  favor;  the  subjective  arrangement  of  the  questions  is  rather 
specious  than  real ;  the  events  of  life  do  not  happen  in  this  kind  of  order  :  and  the  attack  of  the  Pharisees 
was  in  this  instance  pre-arranged,  whereas  the  question  about  the  adulteress  arose  spontaneously  and 
accidentally. 

2  They  are  scarcely  mentioned  except  in  Matt.  xvi.  i. 


THE  DAY  OF  TEMPTATIONS.  4S7 

up  to  this  time,  less  terribly  in  earnest,  and  proposed  to  themselves  no  more 
important  aim  than  to  vex  Jesus,  by  reducing  Him  into  a  confession  of 
difificulty.  So  they  came  with  an  old  stale  piece  of  casuistry,  conceived 
in  the  same  spirit  of  self-complacent  ignorance  as  are  many  of  the  objec- 
tions urged  by  modern  Sadducees  against  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
but  still  sufficiently  puzzling  to  furnish  them  with  an  argument  in  favor 
of  their  disbeliefs,  and  with  a  "difficulty"  to  throw  in  the  way  of  their 
opponents. 

Addressing  Jesus  with  mock  respect,  they  called  His  attention 
to  the  Mosaic  institution  of  levirate  marriages,  and  then  stated,  as 
though  it  had  actually  occurred,"  a  coarse  imaginary  case,  in  which,  on 
the  death  without  issue  of  an  eldest  brother,  the  widow  had  been  espoused 
in  succession  by  the  six  younger  brethren,  all  of  whom  had  died  one 
after  another,  leaving  the  widow  still  surviving.  "  Whose  wife  in  the 
resurrection,  when  people  shall  rise,"  they  scoffingly  ask,  "shall  this  seven- 
fold widow  be?"  The  Pharisees,  if  we  may  judge  from  Talmudical  writ- 
ings, had  .already  settled  the  question  in  a  very  obvious  way,  and  quite 
to  their  own  satisfaction,  by  saying  that  she  should  in  the  resurrection 
be  the  wife  of  the  first  husband.  And  even  if  Jesus  had  given  such  a 
poor  answer  as  "this,  it  is  difficult  to  see — since  the  answer  had  been  sane-, 
tioned  by  men  most  highly  esteemed  for  their  wisdom — how  the  Saddu- 
cees could  have  shaken  the  force  of  the  reply,  or  what  they  would  have 
gained  by  having  put  their  inane  and  materialistic  question.  But  Jesus 
was  content  with  no  such  answer,  though  even  Hillel  and  Shammai  might 
have  been.  Even  when  th^  idioms  and  figures  of  His  language  resem- 
bled that  of  previous  or  contemporary  teachers  of  His  nation,  His  spirit 
and  precepts  differ  utterly  from  theirs."  He  might,  had  He  been  like  any 
other  merely  human  teacher,  have  treated  the  question  with  that  con- 
temptuous scorn  which  it  deserved  ;  but  the  spirit  of  scorn  is  alien  from 
the  spirit  of  the  dove,  and  with  no  contempt  He  gave  to  their  conceited 
and  eristic  dilemma  a  most  profound  reply.  Though  the  question  came 
upon  Him    most    unexpectedly,   His  answer  was  everlastingly  memorable. 

1  Matt.  xxii.  25,  "  There  were  with  its  seven  brethren."  On  levirate  marriages — so  called  from  the 
Latin  word  levir,  "  a  brother-in-law  " — see  Deut.  xxv.  5 — 10. 

2  It  must  be  steadily  borne  in  mind  that  a  vast  majority,  if  not  all,  the  Rabbinic  parallels  adduced  by 
Wetstein,  Schottgen,  Lightfoot,  &c.,  to  the  words  of  Christ  belong  to  a  far  subsequent  period.  These  Rab- 
bis had  ample  opportunities  to  light  their  dim  candles  at  the  fount  of  heavenly  radiance,  and  "  vaunt  of 
the  splendor  as  though  it  were  their  own."  I  do  not  assert  that  the  Rabbis  consciously  borrowed  from 
Christianity,  but  before  half  a  century  had  elapsed  after  the  resurrection,  Christian  thought  was,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  whole  air. 


488  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

It  opened  the  gates  of  Paradise  so  widely  that  men  might  see  therein 
more  than  they  had  ever  seen  before,  and  it  furnished  against  one  of 
the  commonest  forms  of  disbeUef  an  argument  that  neither  Rabbi  nor 
Prophet  had  conceived.  He  did  not  answer  these  Sadducees  with  the 
same  concentrated  sternness  which  marked  His  reply  to  the  Pharisees 
and  Herodians,  because  their  purpose  betrayed  rather  an  insipid  frivolity 
than  a  deeply-seated  malice;  but  He  told  them  that  they  erred  from 
ignorance,  partly  of  the  Scriptures,  and  partly  of  the  power  of  God. 
Had  they  not  been  ignorant  of  the  power  of  God  they  would  not  have 
imao-ined  that  the  life  of  the  children  of  the  resurrection  was  a  mere 
reflex  and  repetition  of  the  life  of  the  children  of  this  world.  In  that 
heaven  beyond  the  grave,  though  love  remains,  yet  all  the  mere  earthli- 
nesses  of  human  relationship  are  superseded  and  transfigured,  "  They  that 
shall  be  accounted  worthy  to  obtain  that  world,  and  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage  ;  neither  can  they  die 
any  more  ;  but  are  equal  unto  the  angels  ;  and  are  the  children  of  God, 
being  the  children  of  the  resurrection."  Then  as  to  their  ignorance  of 
Scrioture,"  He  asked  if  they  had  never  read  in  that  section  of  the  Book 
of  Exodus  which  was  called  "the  Bush,"  how  God  had  described  Him- 
self to  their  great  lawgiver  as  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of 
Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob.  How  unworthy  would  such  a  title  have 
been,  had  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  then  been  but  gray  handfuls  of 
crumbling  dust,  or  dead  bones,  which  should  molder  in  the  Hittite's 
cave  !  "  He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  the  God  of  the  living  :  ye 
therefore  do  ^reatly  err."  Would  it  have  been  possible  that  He  should 
deign  to  call  Himself  the  God  of  dust  and  ashes?  How  new,  how  lumi- 
nous, how  profound  a  principle  of  Scripptural  interpretation  was  this  ! 
The  Sadducees  had  probably  supposed  that  the  words  simply  meant,  "  I 
am  the  God  in  whom  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  trusted  ;"  yet  how 
shallow  a  designation  would  that  have  been,  and  how  little  adapted  to 
inspire  the  faith  and  courage  requisite  for  an  heroic  enterprise  !  "  I  am 
the  God  in  whom  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  trusted;"  and  to  what, 
if  there  were  no  resurrection,  had  their  trust  come  ?  To  death,  and 
nothino-ness,    and    an    everlasting   silence,    and    "  a    land    of    darkness,  as 

I  Jesus  proved  to  them  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  from  the  Pentateuch,  not  from  the  clearer 
declarations  of  the  Prophets,  because  they  attached  a  higher  importance  to  the  Law.  It  was  an  a  fortiori 
argument  "Even  Moses,  &c."  (Luke  xx.  37).  There  is  no  evidence  for  the  assertion  that  they  rejecUd 
all  the  Old  Testament  except  the  Law.  "  The  Bush  •'  means  the  section  so  called  (Exod.  iii.),  just  as 
2  Sam   i    was  called  "  the  Bow,"  Ezek.  i.  "  the  Chariot,"  &c.     The  Homeric  poems  are  similarly  named. 


CHRIST  BLESSING  LITTLE  CHILDREN. 


THE  DAY  OF  TEMPTATIONS.  489 

darkness  itself,"  after  a  life  so  full  of  trials  that  the  last  of  these  patri- 
archs had  described  it  as  a  pilgrimage  of  few  and  evil  years  !  But  God 
meant  more  than  this.  He  meant — and  so  the  Son  of  God  interpreted 
it — that  He  who  helps  them  who  trust  Him  here,  will  be  their  help  and 
stay  for  ever  and  for  ever,  nor  shall  the  future  world  become  for  them 
"a  land  where  all  things  are  forgotten." 


CHAPTER     LII. 


THE    GREAT    DENUNCIATION. 


"  Prophesy  against  the  shepherds  of  Israel,  prophesy." — Ezek.  xxxiv.  2. 


C 


<*'^} 


LL  who  heard  them — even  the  supercilious  Sad 
ducees — must  have  been  solemnized  by  these 
high  answers.  The  listening  multitude  were 
both  astonished  and  delighted  ;  even  some  of 
the  Scribes,  pleased  by  the  spiritual  refutation 
of  a  skepticism  which  their  reasonings  had  been 
unable  to  remove,  could  not  refrain  from  the 
grateful  acknowledgment,  "  Master,  thou  hast 
well  said."  The  more  than  human  wisdom  and 
insight  of  these  replies  created,  even  among 
His  enemies,  a  momentary  diversion  in  His 
favor.  But  once  more  the  insatiable  spirit  of 
casuistry  and  dissension  awoke,  and  this  time  a 
scribe,"  a  student  of  the  Torah,  thought  that  he 
too  would  try  to  fathom  the  extent  of  Christ's  learning  and  wisdom. 
He  asked  a  question  which  instantly  betrayed  a  false  and  unspiritual 
point  of  view,  "Master,  which  is  the  great  commandment  in  the  Law?" 
The  Rabbinical  schools,  in  their  meddling,  carnal,  superficial  spirit  of 
word-weaving  and  letter-worship,  had  spun  large  accumulations  of  worth- 
less subtlety  all  over  the  Mosaic  law.  Among  other  things  they  had 
wasted  their  idleness  in  fantastic  attempts  to  count,  and  classify,  and 
weigh,  and  measure  all  the  separate  commandments  of  the  ceremonial  and 
moral  law.  They  had  come  to  the  sapient  conclusion  that  there  were 
248  affirmative  precepts,  being  as  many  as  the  members  in  the  human 
body,  and  365  negative  precepts,  being  as  many  as  the  arteries  and  veins, 
or  the  days  of  the  year:  the  total  being  613,  which  was  also  the  num- 
ber of  letters  in  the  Decalogue.     They  arrived   at    the    same  result  from 

I  Matt.  xxii.  34 — 40  ;  Mark  xii.  28 — 34.  St.  Matthew  says  "  lawyer,"  a  word  more  frequently  used  by 
St.  Luke  than  "scribe,"  as  less  likely  to  be  misunderstood  by  his  Gentile  readers;  similarly  Josephus 
calls  the  scribes  "  interpreters  of  the  law." 


THE  GREAT  DENUNCIATION.  491 

the  fact  that  the  Jews  were  commanded  (Numb.  xv.  38)  to  wear  fringes 
{tsttsitli)  on  the  corners  of  their  tallith,  bound  with  a  thread  of  blue;  and 
as  each  fringe  had  eight  threads  and  five  knots,  and  the  letters  of  the 
word  tsitsith  make  6cx3,  the  total  number  of  commandments  was,  as  before, 
613.'  Now  surely,  out  of  such  a  large  number  of  precepts  and  prohibi- 
tions, all  could  not  be  of  quite  the  same  value  ;  some  were  "  light"  {kal^, 
and  some  were  "heavy"  {l;obhcd).  But  which  ?  and  what  was  the  greatest 
commandment  of  all  ?  According  to  some  Rabbis,  the  most  important 
of  all  is  that  about  the  tephillin  and  the  tsitsith,  the  fringes  and  phylac- 
teries ;  and  "he  who  diligently  observes  it  is  regarded  in  the  same  light 
as  if  he  had  kept  the  whole  Law."^ 

Some  thought  the  omission  of  ablutions  as  bad  as  homicide  ;  some 
that  the  precepts  of  the  Mishna  were  all  "heavy;"  those  of  the  Law 
were  some  heavy  and  some  light.  Others  considered  the  tliird  to  be  the 
greatest  commandment.  None  of  them  had  realized  the  great  principle, 
that  the  willful  violation  of  one  commandment  is  the  transgression  of  all 
(James  ii.  10),  because  the  object  of  the  entire  Law  is  the  spirit  of 
obedience  to  God.  On  the  question  proposed  by  the  lawyer  the  Sham- 
maites  and  Hillelites  were  in  disaccord  and,  as  usual,  both  schools  were 
wrong :  the  Shammaites,  in  thinking  that  mere  trivial  external  observances 
were  valuable,  apart  from  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  performed,  and 
the  principle  which  they  exemplified  ;  the  Hillelites,  in  thinking  that  any 
positive  command  could  in  itself  be  unimportant,  and  in  not  seeing 
that  great  principles  are  essential  to  the  due  performance  of  even  the 
slightest  duties. 

Still  the  best  and  most  enlightened  of  the  Rabbis  had  already  rightly 
seen  that  the  greatest  of  all  commands,  because  it  was  the  source  of  all 
the  others,  was  that  which  enjoined  the  love  of  the  One  True  God. 
Jesus  had  already  had  occasion  to  express  His  approval  of  this  judgment,* 

1  Other  Rabbis  reckoned  620,  the  numerical  value  of  the  word  keiher,  "a  crown."  This  style  of 
exegesis  was  called  Gematria.  The  sages  of  the  Great  Synagogue  had,  however,  reduced  these  to  eleven, 
taken  from  Ps.  xv.,  and  oberved  that  Isaiah  reduced  them  to  six  (Isa.  Iv.  6,  7),  Micah  to  three  (vi.  8),  and 
Habbakuk  to  one  (ii.  4)  (see  Maccoth,  i.  24).  Hillel  is  said  to  have  pointed  a  heathen  proselyte  to  Lev.  xix. 
18,  with  the  remark  that  "this  is  the  essence  of  the  Law,  the  rest  is  only  commentary." 

2  Rashi  on  Numb.  xv.  38 — 40.  When  R.  Joseph  asked  R.  Joseph  Ben  Rabba  which  commandment 
his  father  had  told  him  to  observe  more  than  any  other,  he  replied,  "  The  law  about  tassels.  Once  when, 
in  descending  a  ladder,  my  father  trod  on  one  of  the  threads,  and  tore  it,  he  would  not  move  from  the 
place  till  it  was  repaired."  These  fringes  must  be  of  four  threads,  one  being  blue,  which  are  to  be  passed 
through  an  eyelet-hole,  doubled  to  make  eight ;  seven  are  to  be  of  equal  length,  the  eighth  to  have  enough 
over  to  twist  into  five  knots,  which  represent  the  five  books  of  the  Law  !  &c. 

3  Luke  X.  27. 


492  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  He  now  repeats  it.  Pointing  to  the  Scribes'  iephillin,'  in  which  one 
of  the  four  divisions  contained  the  " Shetna"  (Deut.  vi.  4) — recited  twice 
a  day  by  every  pious  Israelite — He  told  them  that  thai  was  the  greatest 
of  all  commandments,  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord  ;" 
and  that  the  second  was  like  to  it,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self." Love  to  God  issuing  in  love  to  man — love  to  man,  our  brother, 
resulting  from  love  to  our  Father,  God — on  these  two  commandments 
hang  all  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.' 

The  question,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Scribe  had  put  it,  was  one 
of  the  mere  "  strivings  about  the  Law,'  which,  as  they  were  handled  by 
the  schools,  were  "unprofitable  and  vain."  But  he  could  not  fail  to  see 
that  Jesus  had  not  treated  it  in  the  idle  disputatious  spirit  of  jangling 
logomachy  to  which  he  was  accustomed,  and  had  not  in  His  answer 
sanctioned  any  of  the  common  errors  and  heresies  of  exalting  the  cere- 
monial above  the  moral,  or  the  Tradition  over  the  Torah,  or  the  decis- 
ions of  Sopherim  above  the  utterances  of  Prophets.  Still  less  had  He 
fallen  into  the  fatal  error  of  the  Rabbis,  by  making  obedience  in  one 
particular  atone  for  transgression  in  another.  The  commandments  which 
He  had  mentioned  as  the  greatest  were  not  special  but  general — not 
selected  out  of  many,  but  inclusive  of  all.  The  Scribe  had  the  sense  to 
observe,  and  the  candor  to  acknowledge,  that  the  answer  of  Jesus  was 
wise  and  noble.  "Well,  Master,"  he  exclaimed,  "Thou  hast  said  the 
truth  ; "  and  then  he  showed  that  he  had  read  the  Scriptures  to  some 
advantage  by  summarizing  some  of  those  grand  free  utterances  of  the 
Prophets  which  prove  that  love  to  God  and  love  to  man  is  better  than 
all  whole  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices.*  Jesus  approved  of  his  sincerity, 
and  said  to  him  in  words  which  involved  both  gracious  encouragement 
and  serious  warning,  "  Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
It  was,  therefore,  at  once  easier  for  him  to  enter,  and  more  perilous  to 
turn  aside.  When  he  had  entered  he  would  see  that  the  very  spirit  of 
his  question  was  an  erroneous  and  faulty  one,  and  that  "  whosoever  shall 
keep  the  w-hole   Law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  is  guilty  of  all."^  I 

1  The  passages  inscribed  on  the  parchdnent  slips  which  were  put  into  the  cells  of  the  little  leather  boxes  7, 
called  tephitlin  were  Exod.  xiii.  i — 10,  11 — 16;  Deut.  vi.  4 — g  ;  xi.  13 — 21. 

2  The  expression  "  hangs"  is  probably  proverbial,  but  some  have  seen  in  it  a  special  allusion   to  the 
hanging  tsiisilh,  which  were  meant  to  remind  them  of  the  Law  (Numb.  xv.  39). 

3  Titus  iii.  g. 

4  I  Sam.  XV.  22;  Hosea  vi.  6;  Micah  vi.   6 — 8.     Irenseus  adds  the  "unrecorded   saying,"  "  1   have 
long  desired  to  hear  such  words,  and  have  not  yet  found  the  speaker." 

5  James  ii.  10. 


THE  GREAT  DENUNCIATION.  493 

No  other  attempt  was  ever  made  to  catch  or  entangle  Jesus  by  the 
words  of  His  lips.  The  Sanhedrin  had  now  experienced,  by  the  defeat 
of  their  cunning  stratagems,  and  the  humiliation  of  their  vaunted  wisdom, 
that  one  ray  of  light  from  the  sunlit  hills  on  which  His  spirit  sat,  was 
enough  to  dissipate,  and  to  pierce  through  and  through,  the  fogs  of  wordy 
contention  and  empty  repetition  in  which  they  lived  and  moved  and  had 
their  being.  But  it  was  well  for  them  to  be  convinced  how  easily,  had 
He  desired  it.  He  could  have  employed  against  them  with  overwhelming 
force  the  very  engines  which,  with  results  so  futile  and  so  disastrous,  they 
had  put  in  play  against  Him.  He  therefore  put  to  them  one  simple 
question,  based  on  their  own  principles  of  interpretation,  and  drawn  from 
a  Psalm  (the  i  loth),  which  they  regarded  as  distinctly  Messianic.  In  that 
Psalm  occurs  the  expression,  "The  Lord  (^JehovaJi)  said  unto  my  Lord 
{Adonai^,  Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand."  How  then  could  the  Messiah  be 
David's  son?  Could  Abraham  have  called  Isaac  and  Jacob  and  Joseph, 
or  any  of  his  own  descendants  near  or  remote,  his  lord?  If  not,  how 
came  David  to  do  so  ?  There  could  be  but  one  answer — because  that 
Son  would  be  divine,  not  human — David's  son  by  human  birth,  but  David's 
Lord  by  divine  subsistence.  But  they  could  not  find  this  simple  expla- 
nation, nor,  indeed,  any  other;  they  could  not  find  it,  because  Jesus  was 
their  Messiah,  and  they  had  rejected  Him.  They  chose  to  ignore  the 
fact  that  He  was,  in  the  flesh,  the  son  of  David ;  and  when,  as  their 
Messiah,  He  had  called  Himself  the  Son  of  God,  they  had  raised  their 
hands  in  pious  horror,  and  had  taken  up  stones  to  stone  Him.  So  here 
again — since  they  had  rejected  the  clue  of  faith  which  would  have  led 
them  to  the  true  explanation — their  wisdom  was  utterly  at  fault,  and 
though  they  claimed  so  haughtily  to  be  leaders  of  the  people,  yet,  even 
on  a  topic  so  ordinary  and  so  important  as  their  Messianic  hopes,  they 
were  convicted,  for  the  second  time  on  a  single  day,  of  being  "  blind 
leaders  of  the  blind." 

And  they  loved  their  blindness ;  they  would  not  acknowledge  their 
ignorance  ;  they  did  not  repent  them  of  their  faults ;  the  bitter  venom  of 
their  hatred  to  Him  was  not  driven  forth  by  His  forbearance  ;  the  dense 
midnight  of  their  perversity  was  not  dispelled  by  His  wisdom.  Their 
purpose  to  destroy  Him  was  fixed,  obstinate,  irreversible;  and  if  one  plot 
failed,  they  were  but  driven  with  more  stubborn  sullenness  into  another. 
And,  therefore,  since  Love  had  played  her  part  in  vain,  "Justice  leaped 
upon  the  stage;"  since  the  Light  of  the  World  shone  for  them  with  no 


494  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

illumination,  the  lightning  flash  should  at  last  warn  them  of  their  danger. 
There  could  now  be  no  hope  of  their  becoming  reconciled  to  Him  ;  they 
were  but  being  stereotyped  in  unrepentant  malice  against  Him.  Turn- 
ing, therefore,  to  His  disciples,  but  in  the  audience  of  all  the  people," 
He  rolled  over  their  guilty  heads,  with  crash  on  crash  of  moral  anger, 
the  thunder  of  His  utter  condemnation.  So  far  as  they  represented  a 
legitimate  external  authority  He  bade  His  hearers  to  respect  them,  but 
He  warned  them  not  to  imitate  their  falsity,  their  oppression,  their  osten- 
tation, their  love  of  prominence,  their  fondness  for  titles,  their  insinuating 
avarice,  their  self-exalting  pride.  He  bade  them  beware  of  the  broadened 
phylacteries  and  exaggerated  tassels — of  the  long  robes  that  covered  the 
murderous  hearts,  and  the  long  prayers  that  diverted  attention  from  the 
covetous  designs.  And  then,  solemnly  and  terribly,  He  uttered  His 
eightfold  "  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,"  scathing  them 
in  utterance  after  utterance  with  a  flame  which  at  once  revealed  and 
scorched.  Woe  unto  them,  for  the  ignorant  erudition  which  closed  the 
gates  of  heaven,  and  the  injurious  jealousy  which  would  suffer  no  others 
to  enter  in  !  Woe  unto  them  for  their  oppressive  hypocrisy  and  greedy 
cant!  Woe  for  the  proselytizing  fanaticism  which  did  but  produce  a 
more  perilous  corruption  !  Woe  for  the  blind  hair-splitting  folly  which  so 
confused  the  sanctity  of  oaths  as  to  tempt  their  followers  into  gross  pro- 
fanity!^ Woe  for  the  petty  paltry  sham  scrupulosity  which  paid  tithes 
of  potherbs,  and  thought  nothing  of  justice,  mercy,  and  faith — which 
strained  out  animalcula;  from  the  goblet,  and  swallowed  camels  into  the 
heart  !^  Woe  for  the  external  cleanliness  of  cup  and  platter  contrasted 
with  the  gluttony  and  drunkenness  to  which  they  ministered  !  Woe  to 
the  tombs  that  stimulated  the  sanctity  of  temples — to  the  glistening  out- 
ward plaster  of  hypocrisy  which  did  but  render  more  ghastly  by  contrast 
the  reeking  pollutions  of  the  sepulcher  within  !  Woe  for  the  mock  re- 
pentance which  condemned  their  fathers  for  the  murder  of  the  prophets, 
and  yet  reflected  the  murderous  spirit  of  those  fathers — nay,  filled  up  and 
exceeded  the  measure  of  their  guilt  by  a  yet  deadlier  and  more  dreadful 

1  Some  of  the  Temple  courts  had  room  for  at  least  6,000  people,  and  it  is  probable  that  even  more 
were  assembled  in  them  at  the  Passover,  the  torch-dance  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  &c. 

2  The  miserable  quibbles  by  which,  in  consequence  of  such  pernicious  teaching,  the  Jews  evaded  their 
oaths,  became  notorious  even  in  the  heathen  world.  The  charges  which  our  Lord  uttered  are  amply  sup- 
ported by  Jewish  testimonies  :  e.g.,  in  Midrash  Esth.  it  is  said  that  there  are  ten  portions  of  hypocrisy  in 
the  world,  of  which  nine  are  at  Jerusalem.  In  tithing  anise  they  made  it  a  question  whether  it  was  enough 
to  pay  tithes  of  the  flower  only,  or  also  of  the  seed  and  stalk  ! 

3  They  filtered  their  water  through  linen  to  avoid  swallowing  any  unclean  insect  (Lev.  xi.  41 — 43). 


THE  GREAT  DENUNCIATION.  495 

sacrifice !  Ay,  on  that  generation  would  come  all  the  righteous  blood 
shed  upon  the  earth,  from  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel  to  the  blood  of 
Zacharias,  whom  they  slew  between  the  porch  and  the  altar.  The  purple 
cloud  of  retribution  had  long  been  gathering  its  elements  of  fury :  upon 
their  heads  should  it  burst  in  flame  ! 

And  at  that  point  the  voice  which  had  rung  with  just  and  noble 
indignation  broke  with  the  tenderest  pity — "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou 
that  killest  the  prophets,  and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how 
often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gather- 
eth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not !  Behold,  your  house 
is  left  unto  you  desolate  !  For  I  say  unto  you.  Ye  shall  not  see  me 
henceforth  till  ye  shall  say,  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord." 

"  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites ! "  Some  have 
ventured  to  accuse  these  words  of  injustice,  of  bitterness — to  attribute 
them  to  a  burst  of  undignified  disappointment  and  unreasonable  wrath. 
Yet  is  sin  never  to  be  rebuked  ?  is  hypocrisy  never  to  be  unmasked  ?  is 
moral  indignation  no  necessary  part  of  the  noble  soul  ?  And  does  not 
Jewish  literature  itself  most  amply  support  the  charge  brought  against 
the  Pharisees  by  Jesus  ?  "  Fear  not  true  Pharisees,  but  greatly  fear 
painted  Pharisees,"  said  Alexander  Jannseus  to  his  wife  on  his  death-bed. 
"The  supreme  tribunal,"  says  R.  Nachaman,  "will  duly  punish  hypocrites 
who  wrap  their  talliths  around  them  to  appear,  which  they  are  not,  true 
Pharisees."  Nay,  the  Talmud  itself,  with  unwonted  keenness  and  severity 
of  sarcasm,  has  pictured  to  us  the  seven  classes  of  Pharisees,  out  of  which 
six  are  characterized  by  a  mixture  of  haughtiness  and  imposture.  There  is 
the  "  Shechemite  "  Pharisee,  who  obeys  the  law  from  self-interest  (cf.  Gen. 
xxxiv.  19);  the  Tumbling  Pharisee  {nikji),  who  is  so  humble  that  he  is 
always  stumbling  because  he  will  not  lift  his  feet  from  the  ground  ; 
the  Bleeditig  Pharisee  {kinai^,  who  is  always  hurting  himself  against 
wall§,  because  he  is  so  modest  as  to  be  unable  to  walk  about  with  his 
eyes  open  lest  he  should  see  a  woman  ;  the  Mortar  Pharisee  (tjiedorkia), 
who  covers  his  eyes  as  with  a  mortar,  for  the  same  reason  ;  the  Tell-me- 
another-dtity-and-I-will-do-it  Pharisee — several  of  whom  occur  in  our  Lord's 
ministry ;  and  the  TitJiid  Pharisee,  who  is  actuated  by  motives  of  fear 
alone.  The  seventh  class  only  is  the  class  of  "  Pharisees  from  love,"  who 
obey  God  because  they  love   Him  from  the  heart. 

"  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate  ! "     And  has  not  that 


496  '  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

denunciation  been  fearfully  fulfilled  ? "  Who  does  not  catch  an  echo  of  it 
in  the  language  of  Tacitus? — "  Expassae  repente  delubri  fores,  et  audita 
Major  humana  vox  excidere  Deos."  Speaking  of  the  murder  of  the 
younger  Hanan,  and  other  eminent  nobles  and  hierarchs,  Josephus  says, 
"  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  was  because  God  had  doomed  this  city  to 
destructioti  as  a  polluted  city,  and  was  resolved  to  purge  His  sanctuary  by 
Jire,  that  He  cut  off  these  their  great  defenders  and  well-wishers  ;  while 
those  that  a  little  before  had  worn  the  sacred  garments  and  presided 
over  the  public  worship,  and  had  been  esteemed  venerable  by  those  that 
dwelt  in  the  whole  habitable  earth,  were  cast  out  naked,  and  seen  to  be 
the  food  of  dogs  and  wild  beasts."  Never  was  a  narrative  more  full  of 
horrors,  frenzies,  unspeakable  degradations,  and  overwhelming  miseries 
than  is  the  history  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem.  Never  was  any  prophecy 
more  closely,  more  terribly,  more  overwhelmingly  fulfilled  than  this  of 
Christ.  The  men  going  about  in  the  disguise  of  women  with  swords 
concealed  under  their  gay  robes  ;  the  rival  outrages  and  infamies  of  John 
and  Simon ;  the  priests  struck  by  darts  from  the  upper  court  of  the 
Temple,  and  falling  slain  by  their  own  sacrifices;  "the  blood  of  all  sorts 
of  dead  carcases — priests,  strangers,  profane — standing  in  lakes  in  the 
holy  courts  ;  "  the  corpses  themselves  lying  in  piles  and  mounds  on  the 
very  altar  slopes;  the  fires  feeding  luxuriously  on  cedar-work  overlaid 
with  gold ;  friend  and  foe  trampled  to  death  on  the  gleaming  mosaics  in 
promiscuous  carnage ;  priests,  swollen  with  hunger,  leaping  madly  into 
the  devouring  flames,  till  at  last  those  flames  had  done  their  work,  and 
what  had  been  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  the  beautiful  and  holy  House 
of  God,  was  a  heap  of  ghastly  ruin,  where  the  burning  embers  were 
half-slaked  in  pools  of  gore. 

And  did  not  all  the  righteous  blood  shed  upon  the  earth  since  the 
days  of  Abel  come  upon  that  generation  ?  Did  not  many  of  that  genera- 
tion survive  to  witness  and  feel  the  unutterable  horrors  which  Josephus 
tells? — to  see  their  fellows  crucified  in  jest,  "some  one  way,  and  some 
another,"  till  "  room  was  wanting  for  the  crosses,  and  crosses  for  the 
carcases?" — to  experience  the  "deep  silence"  and  the  kind  of  deadly  night 
which  seized  upon  the  city  in  the  intervals  of  rage  ? — to  see  600,000  dead 
bodies  carried  out  of  the  gates  ? — to  see  friends  fighting  madly  for  grass 
and    nettles,  and    the   refuse    of    the    drains? — to    see    the    bloody  zealots 

I  "  One  poor  Jew  .  .  .  stood  in  humble  prayer,  with  his  tephiila  wrapped  round  his  body  and  arms, 
weeping  as  he  uttered  the  words  spoken  by  every  Jew  when  he  sees  the  Holy  Land,  •  WOE  is  ME  !  THY  HOLY  CITIE* 
ARE   TURNED   INTO   DESERTS."  "      (Frankl.) 


rilK    LORD    OF    TUK    V INEV  ARD.— Matt,  xx     1-16. 


THE  GREAT  DENUNCIATION.  497 

"gaping  for  want,  and  stumbling  and  staggering  along  like  mad  dogs  ?"— 
to  hear  the  horrid  tale  of  the  miserable  mother  who,  in  the  pangs  of 
famine,  had  devoured  her  own  child  ? — to  be  sold  for  slaves  in  such 
multitudes  that  at  last  none  would  buy  them  ? — to  see  the  streets  running 
with  blood,  and  the  "  fire  of  burning  houses  quenched  in  the  blood  of 
their  defenders?" — to  have  their  young  sons  sold  in  hundreds,  or  exposed 
in  the  amphitheaters  to  the  sword*  of  the  gladiator  or  the  fury  of  the 
lion,  until  at  last,  "since  the  people  were  now  slain,  the  Holy  House 
burnt  down,  and  the  city  in  flames,  there  was  nothing  farther  left  for  the 
enemy  to  do?"  In  that  awful  siege  it  is  believed  that  there  perished 
1,100,000  men,  beside  the  97,000  who  were  carried  captive,  and  most  of 
whom  perished  subsequently  in  the  arena  or  the  mine  ;  and  it  was  an 
awful  thing  to  feel,  as  some  of  the  survivors  and  eye-witnesses — and  they 
not  Christians — did  feel,  that  "  the  city  had  deserved  its  overthrow  by 
producing  a  generation  of  men  who  were  the  causes  of  its  misfortunes ; " 
and  that  "  neither  did  any  other  city  ever  suffer  such  miseries,  nor  did 
any  age  ever  breed  a  generation  more  fruitful  in  wickedness  than  this  xvas, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world" 


32 


CHAPTER    LI  1 1. 


FAREWELL     TO     THE      TEMPLE. 


"Since  the  Church  of  God  was  now  growing  veryfruitfully  through  the  whole  world,  the  Temple  was 
destined  for  removal  as  worn  out,  and  useless,  and  profitable  for  no  good  end." — Orgs.  vii.  9. 

-,S^     >^,,_      „||||,    .Mill II.    '^., 

T  MUST  have  been  clear  to  all  that  the  Great 
Denunciation  recorded  in  the  last  chapter  in- 
volved a  final  and  hopeless  rupture.  After 
language  such  as  this  there  could  be  no  possi- 
bility of  reconciliation.  It  was  "  too  late."  The 
door  was  shut.  When  Jesus  left  the  Temple 
His  disciples  must  have  been  aware  that  He 
was  leaving  it  for  ever. 

But  apparently  as  He  was  leaving  it — per- 
haps while  He  was  sitting  with  sad  heart  and 
downcast  eyes  in  the  Court  of  the  Women  to 
rest  His  soul,  troubled  by  the  unwonted  intensity  of  moral 
indignation,  and  His  mind  wearied  with  these  incessant 
assaults — another  and  less  painful  incident  happened,  which 
enabled  Him  to  leave  the  actual  precincts  of  the  House 
of  His  Father  with  words,  not  of  anger,  but  of  approval.  In  this  Court 
of  the  Women  were  thirteen  chests  called  shopherdth,  each  shaped  like  a 
trumpet,  broadening  downwards  from  the  aperture,  and  each  adorned 
with  various  inscriptions.  Into  these  were  cast  those  religious  and  benevo- 
lent contributions  which  helped  to  furnish  the  Temple  with  its  splendid 
w^ealth.  While  Jesus  was  sitting  there  the  multitude  were  dropping  their 
gifts,  and  the  wealthier  donors  were  conspicuous  among  them  as  they 
ostentatiously  offered  their  gold  and  silver.  Raising  His  eyes,  perhaps 
from  a  reverie  of  sorrow,  Jesus  at  a  glance  took  in  the  whole  signifi- 
cance cf  the  scene."  At  that  moment  a  poor  widow  timidly  dropped  in 
her  little  contribution.  The  lips  of  the  rich  contributors  may  have  curled 
with  scorn  at  a  presentation  which  was  the  very  lowest  legal  minimum.     She 

I   Luke  >:xi.  i,   "  Looking  up."     Passages  like  "  He  that  giveth  alms  in  secret  is  greater  than    Moses 
himself  ; "  "  It  is  as  well  not  to  give  as  to  give  ostentatiously  and  openly,"  are  quoted  from  the  Talmud. 

498 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  TEMPLE.  499 

had  given  two  prutahs  (nvji-ic),  the  very  smallest  of  current  coins  ;  for  it 
was  not  lawful,  even  for  the  poorest,  to  offer  only  one.  A  lepton,  or 
priitah,  was  the  eighth  part  of  an  as,  and  was  worth  a  little  less  than 
half  a  farthing,  so  that  her  whole  gift  was  of  the  value  of  less  than  a  farth- 
ing ;  and  with  the  shame  of  poverty  she  may  well  have  shrunk  from  giving 
so  trivial  a  gift  when  the  rich  men  around  her  were  lavishing  their  gold. 
But  Jesus  was  pleased  with  the  faithfulness  and  the  self-sacrificing  spirit  of 
the  gift.  It  was  like  the  "  cup  of  cold  water"  given  for  love's  sake,  which 
in  His  kingdom  should  not  go  unrewarded.  He  wished  to  teach  for  ever 
the  great  lesson  that  the  essence  of  charity  is  self-denial ;  and  the  self- 
denial  of  this  widow  in  her  pauper  condition  was  far  greater  than  that 
of  the  wealthiest  Pharisee  who  had  contributed  his  gold.  "  For  they  all 
flung  in  of  their  abundance,  but  she  of  her  penury  cast  in  all  she  had, 
her  whole  means  of  subsistence."  "  One  coin  out  of  a  little,"  says  St. 
Ambrose,  "  is  better  than  a  treasure  out  of  much  ;  for  it  is  not  consid- 
ered how  much  is  given,  but  how  much  remains  behind."  "  If  there  be  a 
willing  mind,"  says  St.  Paul,  "it  is  accepted  according  to  that  a  man  hath, 
and  not  according  to  that  he  hath  not." 

And  now  Jesus  left  the  Temple  for  the  last  time  ;  but  the  feelings  of 
the  Apostles  still  clung  with  the  loving  pride  of  their  nationality  to  that 
sacred  and  memorable  spot."  They  stopped  to  cast  upon  it  one  last 
lingering  gaze,  and  one  of  them  was  eager  to  call  His  attention  to  its 
goodly  stones  and  splendid  offerings — those  nine  gates  overlaid  with  gold 
and  silver,  and  the  one  of  solid  Corinthian  brass  yet  more  precious ; 
those  graceful  and  towering  porches ;  those  beveled  blocks  of  marble 
forty  cubits  long  and  ten  cubits  high,  testifying  to  the  toil  and  munif- 
icence of  so  many  generations  ;  those  double  cloisters  and  stately  pillars  ; 
that  lavish  adornment  of  sculpture  and  arabesque  ;  those  alternate  blocks 
of  red  and  white  marble,  recalling  the  crest  and  hollow  of  the  sea-waves; 
those  vast  clusters  of  golden  grapes,  each  cluster  as  large  as  a  man, 
which  twined  their  splendid  luxuriance  over  the  golden  doors.  They 
would  have  Him  gaze  with  them  on  the  rising  terraces  of  courts — the 
Court  of  the  Gentiles  with  its  monolithic  columns  and  rich  mosaic  ;  above 
this  the  flight  of  fourteen  steps  which  led  to  the  Court  of  the  Women  ; 
then  the  flight  of  fifteen  steps  which  led  up  to  the  Court  of  the  Priests; 
then,  once  more,  the  twelve  steps  which  led  to  the  final  platform  crowned 
by    the    actual    Holy,    and     Holy    of    Holies,    which    the     Rabbis    fondly 

I  Matt.  xxiv.  I  ;  Mark  xiii.  i  ;  Luke  xxi.  5,  6. 


500  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

compared  for  its  shape  to  a  couchant  lion,  and  which,  with  its  marble  white- 
ness and  gilded  roofs,  looked  like  a  glorious  mountain  whose  snowy 
summit  was  gilded  by  the  sun. 

It  is  as  though  they  thought  that  the  loveliness  and  splendor  of  this 
scene  would  intercede  with  Him,  touching  His  heart  with  mute  appeal. 
But  the  heart  of  Jesus  was  sad.  To  Him  the  sole  beauty  of  a  Temple 
was  the  sincerity  of  its  worshippers,  and  no  gold  or  marble,  no  brilliant 
vermilion  or  curiously-carven  cedar-wood,  no  delicate  sculpturing  or  votive 
gems,  could  change  for  Him  a  den  of  robbers  into  a  House  of  Prayer. 
The  builders  were  still  busily  at  work,  as  they  had  been  for  nearly  fifty 
years,  but  their  work,  unblessed  of  God,  was  destined — like  the  earth- 
quake-shaken forum  of  guilty  Pompeii — to  be  destroyed  before  it  was 
finished.  Briefly  and  almost  sternly  Jesus  answered,  as  He  turned  away 
from  the  glittering  spectacle,  "  Seest  thou  these  great  buildings  ?  there 
shall  not  be  left  one  stone  upon  another  which  shall  not  be  thrown 
down."  It  was  the  final  exxoopoo/^ev — the  "Let  us  depart  hence"  of 
retiring  Deity.  Tacitus  and  Josephus  tell  us  how  at  the  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem was  heard  that  great  utterance  of  departing  gods  ;  but  now  it  was 
•  uttered  in  reality,  though  no  earthquake  accompanied  it,  nor  any  miracle 
to  show  that  this  was  the  close  of  another  great  epoch  in  the  world's 
history.  It  took  place  quietly,  and  God  "  was  content  to  show  all  things 
in  the  slow  history  of  their  ripening."  Thirty-five  years  afterwards  that 
Temple  sank  into  the  ashes  of  its  destruction  ;  neither  Hadrian,  nor  Julian, 
nor  any  other,  were  able  to  build  upon  its  site  ;  and  now  that  very  site 
is  a  matter  of  uncertainty. 

Sadly  and  silently,  with  such  thoughts  in  their  hearts,  the  little  band 
turned  their  backs  on  the  sacred  building,  which  stood  there  as  an  epi- 
tome of  Jewish  history  from  the  days  of  Solomon  onwards.  They  crossed 
the  valley  of  Kidron,  and  climbed  the  steep  foot-path  that  leads  over  the 
Mount  of  Olives  to  Bethany.  At  the  summit  of  the  hill  they  paused, 
and  Jesus  sat  down  to  rest — perhaps  under  the  green  boughs  of  those 
two  stately  cedar-trees  which  then  adorned  the  summit  of  the  hill.  It 
was  a  scene  well  adapted  to  inspire  most  solemn  thoughts.  Deep  on  the 
one  side  beneath  Him  lay  the  Holy  City,  which  had  long  become  a 
harlot,  and  which  now,  on  this  day — the  last  great  day  of  His  public 
ministry — had  shown  finally  that  she  knew  not  the  time  of  her  visitation. 
At  His  feet  were  the  slopes  of  Olivet  and  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 
On  the  opposite  slope  rose  the  city  walls,  and  the  broad  plateau  crowned 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  TEMPLE.  •  501 

with  the  marble  colonnades  and  gilded  roofs  of  the  Temple.  Turnino-  in 
the  eastward  direction  He  would  look  across  the  bare,  desolate  hills  of 
the  wilderness  of  Judea  to  the  purpling  line  of  the  mountains  of  Moab, 
which  glow  like  a  chain  of  jewels  in  the  sunset  light.  In  the  deep, 
scorched  hollows  of  the  Ghor,  visible  in  patches  of  sullen  cobalt,  lay  the 
mysterious  waters  of  the  Sea  of  Lot.  And  thus,  as  He  gazed  from  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  on  either  side  of  Him  there  were  visible  tokens  of  God's 
anger  and  man's  sin.  On  the  one  side  gloomed  the  dull  lake,  whose 
ghastly  and  bituminous  waves  are  a  perpetual  testimony  to  God's  ven- 
geance upon  sensual  crime  ;  at  His  feet  was  the  glorious  guilty  city  which 
had  shed  the  blood  of  all  the  prophets,  and  was  doomed  to  sink  throu^rh 
yet  deadlier  wickedness  to  yet  more  awful  retribution.  And  the  settino- 
sun  of  His  earthly  life  flung  deeper  and  more  somber  colorings  across 
the  whole  scene  of  His  earthly  pilgrimage. 

It  may  be  that  the  shadows  of  His  thought  gave  a  strange  solem- 
nity to  His  attitude  and  features,  as  He  sat  there  silent  among  the  silent 
and  saddened  band  of  His  few  faithful  followers.  Not  without  a  touch 
of  awe  His  nearest  and  most  favored  Apostles — Peter,  and  James,  and 
John,  and  Andrew — came  near  to  Him,  and  as  they  saw  His  eye  fixed 
upon  the  Temple,  asked  Him  privately,  "When  shall  these  things  be? 
and  what  shall  be  the  sign  of  Thy  coming,  and  of  the  end  of  the  world?"' 
Their  "when?"  remained  for  the  present  unanswered.  It  was  the  way 
of  Jesus,  when  some  ignorant  or  irrelevant  or  inadmissible  question  was 
put  to  Him,  to  rebuke  it  not  directly,  but  by  passing  it  over,  and  by 
substituting  for  its  answer  some  great  moral  lesson  which  was  connected 
with  it,  and  could  alone  make  it  valuable.'  Accordingly,  this  question  of 
the  Apostles  drew  from  Him  the  great  Eschatological  Discourse,  or 
Discourse  of  the  Last  Things,  of  which  the  four  moral  key-notes  are 
"Beware!"  and  "Watch!"  and  "Endure!"  and  "Pray." 

Immense  difficulties  have  been  found  in  this  discourse,  and  long 
treatises  have  been  written  to  remove  them.  .  And,  indeed,  the  metaphor- 
ical language  in  which  it  is  clothed,  and  the  intentional  obscurity  in 
which  the  will  of  God  has  involved  all  those  details  of  the  future  which 
would  only  minister  to  an  idle  curiosity  or  a  paralyzing  dread,  must  ever 
make  parts  of  it  difificult  to  understand.  But  if  we  compare  together  the 
reports  of  the  three  Synoptists,^  and  see    how    they  mutually  throw  light 

Matt,  xxiv.,  x:'"'.  ;  Mark  xiii.  3 — 37  ;  Luke  xxi.  7 — 38. 
_  Comp.  Luke  .iiii.  23,  24. 
3  Matt,  xxiv.,  XXV.  ;  Mark  xiii.  ;  Luke  xxi. 


502  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

upon  each  other  ;  if  we  remember  that,  in  all  three,  the  actual  words  of 
Jesus  are  necessarily  condensed,  and  are  only  reported  in  their  substance, 
and  in  a  manner  which  admits  of  verbal  divergences ;  if  we  bear  in  mind 
that  they  are  in  all  probability  a  rendering  into  Greek  from  the  Aramaic 
vernacular  in  which  they  were  spoken  ;  if  we  keep  hold  of  the  certainty 
that  the  object  of  Prophecy  in  all  ages  has  been  moral  warning  infinitely 
more  than  even  the  vaguest  chronological  indication,  since  to  the  voice 
of  Prophecy  as  to  the  eye  of  God  all  Time  is  but  one  eternal  Present, 
"one  day  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day;""  if, 
finally,  we  accept  with  quiet  reverence,  and  without  any  idle  theological 
phraseology  about  the  coni7nunicatio  idiomalum,  the  distinct  assertion  of 
the  Lord  Himself,  that  to  Him,  in  His  human  capacity,  were  not  known 
the  day  and  the  hour,  which  belonged  to  "  the  times  and  the  seasons 
which  the  Father  hath  kept  in  His  own  power;" — if,  I  say,  we  read 
these  chapters  with  such  principles  kept  steadily  in  view,  then  to  every 
earnest  and  serious  reader  I  feel  sure  that  most  of  the  difficulties  will 
vanish  of  themselves. 

It  is  evident,  from  comparing  St.  Luke  with  the  other  Synoptists, 
that  Jesus  turned  the  thoughts  of  the  disciples  to  two  horizons,  one  near 
and  one  far  off,  as  He  suffered  them  to  see  one  brief  glimpse  of  the 
landscape  of  the  future.  The  boundary  line  of  either  horizon  marked  the 
winding  up  of  an  ccon ;  each  was  a  great  ending  ;  of  each  it  was  true  that 
the  then  existing  y^vka — first  in  its  literal  sense  of  "  generation,"  then  in 
its  wider  sense  of  "  race " — should  not  pass  away  until  all  had  been 
fulfilled.  And  the  one  was  the  type  of  the  other ;  the  judgment  upon 
Jerusalem,  followed  by  the  establishment  of  the  visible  Church  on  earth, 
foreshadowed  the  judgment  of  the  world,  and  the  establishment  of  Christ's 
kingdom  at  His  second  coming.  And  if  the  vague  prophetic  language 
and  imagery  of  St.  Matthew,  and  to  a  less  degree  that  of  St.  Mark, 
might  lead  to  the  impression  that  these  two  events  were  continuous,  or 
at  least  nearly  conterminous  with  each  other,  on  the  other  hand  we  see 
clearly  from  St.  Luke  that  our  Lord  expressly  warned  the  inquiring  Apos- 
tles that,  though  many  of  the  signs  which  He  predicted  would  be  followed 
by  the  immediate  close  of  one  great  epoch  in  the  world's  history,  on  the 
other  hand  the  great  consummation,  the  final  Palingenesia,  would  not  fol- 
low at  once,  nor  were  they  to  be  alarmed  by  the  troubles  and  commotions 

I  Ps.  xc.  4  ;  2  Peter  iii.  8.     St.  Augustine  wisely  says,  "  The  last  day  is  unrevealed  that  all  days  may 
be  observed." 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  TEMPLE.  503 

of  the  world  into  any  instant  or  feverish  expectancy.  In  fact,  when  once 
we  have  grasped  the  principle  that  Jesus  was  speaking  partly  and  prima- 
rily of  the  fall  of  the  Jewish  polity  and  dispensation,  partly  and  second- 
arily of  the  End  of  the  World — but  that,  since  He  spoke  of  them  with 
that  varying  interchange  of  thought  and  speech  which  was  natural  for  One 
whose  whole  being  moved  in  the  sphere  of  Eternity  and  not  of  Time, 
the  Evangelists  have  not  clearly  distinguished  between  the  passao-es  in 
which  He  is  referring  more  prominently  to  the  one  than  to  the  other — 
we  shall  then  avoid  being,  misled  by  any  superficial  and  erroneous  impres- 
sions, and  shall  bear  in  mind  that  before  the  final  end  Jesus  placed 
two  great  events.  The  first  of  these  was  a  long  treading  under  foot  of 
Jerusalem,  until  the  times  of  the  Gentiles  {i.e.,  their  whole  opportunities 
under  the  Christian  dispensation)  should  be  fulfilled;'  the  second  was  a 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  to  all  nations  in  all  the  world.'' 
Nor  can  we  deny  all  probability  to  the  supposition  that  while  the  inspired 
narrators  of  the  Gospel  history  reported  with  perfect  wisdom  and  faith- 
fulness everything  that  was  essential  to  the  life  and  salvation  of  mankind, 
their  abbreviations  of  what  Jesus  uttered,  and  the  sequence  which  they 
gave  to  the  order  of  His  utterances,  were  to  a  certain  extent  tinged  by 
their  own  subjectivity — possibly  even  by  their  own  natural  supposition — 
that  the  second  horizon  lay  nearer  to  the  first  than  it  actually  did  in  the 
designs  of  Heaven. 

In  this  discourse,  then,  Jesus  first  warned  them  of  false  Messiahs  and 
false  prophets ;  He  told  them  that  the  wild  struggling  of  nations  and 
those  physical  commotions  and  calamities  which  have  so  often  seemed  to 
synchronize  with  the  great  crises  of  History,  were  not  to  trouble  them, 
as  they  would  be  but  the  throe  of  the  Palingenesia,  the  first  birth-pang 
of  the  coming  time.^  He  prophesied  of  dreadful  persecutions,  of  abound- 
ing iniquity,  of  decaying  faith,  of  wide  evangelization  as  the  signs  of  a 
coming  end.  And  as  we  learn  from  many  other  passages  of  Scripture, 
these  signs,  as  they  did  usher  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  so  shall 
reappear  on  a  larger  scale  before  the  end  of  all  things  is  at  hand." 

The  next  great  paragraph  of  this  speech  dwelt  mainly  on  the  immediate 
future.  He  had  foretold  distinctly  the  destruction  of  the  Holy  City,  and 
He    now    gives    them    indications    which   should    forewarn    them    of    its 

1  Luke  xxi.  24. 

2  Matt.  xxiv.  14. 

3  Matt.  xxiv.  8. 

4  See  I  Thess.  v.  3  ;  2  Thess.  ii.  2,  &c. 


504  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

approach,  and  lead  them  to  secure  their  safety.  When  they  should  see 
Jerusalem  encompassed  with  armies — when  the  abomination  which  should 
cause  desolation  should  stand  in  the  Holy  Place — then  even  from  the 
fields,  even  from  the  housetops,  they  were  to  fly  out  of  Judea  to  the 
shelter  of  the  Trans-Jordanic  hills,  from  the  unspeakable  horrors  that 
should  follow.  Nor  even  then  were  they  to  be  carried  away  by  any  deceiv- 
ableness  of  unrighteousness,  caused  by  the  yearning  intensity  of  Messianic 
hopes.  Many  should  cry,  "  Lo  here  !  and  lo  there ! "  but  let  them  pay 
no  heed  ;  for  when  He  came,  His  presence,  lik|  lightning  shining  from 
the  east  even  to  the  west,  should  be  visible  and  unmistakable  to  all  the 
world,  and  like  eagles  gathering  to  the  carcass  should  the  destined  minis- 
ters of  His  vengeance  wing  their  flight.'  By  such  warnings  the  Chris- 
tians were  preserved.  Before  John  of  Giscala  had  shut  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem,  and  Simon  of  Gerasa  had  begun  to  murder  the  fugitives,  so 
that  "  he  who  escaped  the  tyrant  within  the  wall  was  destroyed  by  the 
other  that  lay  before  the  gates " — before  the  Roman  eagle  waved  her 
wing  over  the  doomed  city,  or  the  infamies  of  lust  and  murder  had 
driven  every  worshipper  in  horror  from  the  Temple  Courts — the  Chris- 
tians had  taken  timely  warning,  and  in  the  little  Persean  town  of  Pella, 
were  beyond  the  reach  of  all  the  robbery,  and  murder,  and  famine,  and 
cannibalism,  and  extermination  which  made  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  a 
scene  of  greater  tribulation  than  any  that  has  been  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world. 

Then  Jesus  passed  to  the  darkening  of  the  sun  and  moon,  and  the 
falling  of  the  stars,  and  the  shaking  of  the  powers  of  heaven — signs 
which  may  have  a  meaning  both  literal  and  metaphorical — which  should 
precede  the  appearing  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  heaven,  and  the  gathering 
of  the  elect  from  the  four  winds  by  the  trumpet-blast  of  the  angels. 
That  day  of  the  Lord  should  have  its  signs  no  less  than  the  other,  and 
He  bade  His  disciples  in  all  ages  to  mark  those  signs  and  interpret 
them  aright,  even  as  they  interpreted  the  signs  of  the  coming  summer  in 
the  fig-tree's  budding  leaves.  But  that  day  should  come  to  the  world 
suddenly,  unexpectedly,  overwhelmingly ;  and  as  it  should  be  a  day  of 
reward  to  all    faithful    servants,  so  should  it  be  a  day  of  vengeance    and 

'  1  On  the  interpretation  of  this  symbol,  see  Luke  xvii.  37.  That  the  "eagles"  are  primarily  the 
Romans,  finds  additional  illustration  from  the  Book  of  Enoch,  xcii.,  where  Pagan  foes  are  compared  to 
ravens  and  eagles.  Legionary  eagles  were  the  very  commonest  symbols  on  Roman  colonial  coins,  and  so 
many  are  still  found  in  the  East  that  they  must  have  been  very  familiar  to  the  Jews,  who  regarded  them 
with  special  detestation. 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  TEMPLE.  505 

destruction  to  the  glutton  and  the  drunkard,  to  the  hypocrite  and  the 
oppressor.  Therefore,  to  impress  yet  more  indelibly  upon  their  minds 
the  lessons  of  watchfulness  and  faithfulness,  and  to  warn  them  yet 
more  emphatically  against  the  peril  of  drowsy  life  and  the  smoldering 
lamp,'  He  told  them  the  exquisite  Parables — so  beautiful,  so  simple,  yet 
so  rich  in  instruction — of  the  Ten  Virgins  and  of  the  Talents  ;  and  drew 
for  them  a  picture  of  that  Great  Day  of  Judgment  on  which  the 
King  should  separate  all  nations  from  one  another  as  the  shepherd 
divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats.  On  that  day  those  who  had 
shown  the  least  kindness  to  the  least  of  these  His  brethren  should 
be  accounted  to  have  done  it  unto  Him.  But  then,  lest  these  grand 
eschatological  utterances  should  lead  them  to  any  of  their  old  mistaken 
Messianic  notions,  He  ended  them  with  the  sad  and  now  half-familiar 
refrain,  that  His  death  and  anguish  must  precede  all  else.  The  occasion, 
the  manner,  the  very  day  are  now  revealed  to  them  with  the  utmost 
plainness  and  simplicity  :  "Ye  know  that  after  two  days  is  the  Passover, 
and  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  to  be  crucified." 

So  ended  that  great  discourse  upon  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  sun 
set,  and  He  arose  and  walked  with  His  Apostles  the  short  remaining 
road  to  Bethany.  It  was  the  last  time  that  He  would  ever  walk  it  upon 
earth  ;  and  after  the  trials,  the  weariness,  the  awful  teachings,  the  terrible 
agitations  of  that  eventful  day,  how  delicious  to  Him  must  have  been 
that  hour  of  twilight  loveliness  and  evening  calm ;  how  refreshing  the 
peace  and  affection  which  surrounded  Him  in  the  quiet  village  aj\d  the 
holy  home.  As  we  have  already  noticed,  Jesus  did  not  love  cities,  and 
scarcely  ever  slept  within  their  precincts.  He  shrank  from  their  congre- 
gated wickednesses,  from  their  glaring  publicity,  from  their  feverish  ex- 
citement, from  their  featureless  monotony,  with  all  the  natural  and 
instinctive  dislike  of  delicate  minds.  An  Oriental  city  is  always  dirty ; 
the  refuse  is  flung  into  the  streets  ;  there  is  no  pavement ;  the  pariah  dog 
is  the  sole  scavenger ;  beast  and  man  jostle  each  other  promiscuously  in 
the  crowded  thoroughfares.  And  though  the  necessities  of  His  work  com- 
pelled Him  to  visit  Jerusalem,  and  to  preach  to  the  vast  throngs  from 
every  climate  and  country  who  were  congregated  at  its  yearly  festivals, 
yet  He  seems  to  have  retired  on  every  possible  occasion  beyond  its 
gates,  partly  it    may  be    for    safety — partly  from    poverty — partly  because 

I   Matt.  XXV.  8,  not  "our  lamps  are  gone  out,"   but   "are   smoldering,"  "are  being  quenched."     The 
lipht  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  is  dying  away  in  the  "  earthen  vessels  "  of  our  life. 


5o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

He  loved  that  sweet  home  at  Bethany — and  partly  too,  perhaps,  because 
He  felt  the  peaceful  joy  of  treading  the  grass  that  groweth  on  the 
mountains  rather  than  the  city  stones,  and  could  hold  gladder  communion 
with  His  Father  in  heaven  under  the  shadow  of  the  olive-trees,  where, 
far  from  all  disturbing  sights  and  sounds,  He  could  watch  the  splendor 
of  the  sunset  and  the  falling  of  the  dew. 

And  surely  that  last  evening  walk  to  Bethany  on  that  Tuesday  even- 
ing in  Passion  week  must  have  breathed  deep  calm  into  His  soul.  The 
thought,  indeed,  of  the  bitter  cup  which  He  was  so  soon  to  drink  was 
doubtless  present  to  Him,  but  present  only  in  its  aspect  of  exalted  sacri- 
fice, and  the  highest  purpose  of  love  fulfilled.  Not  the  pangs  which  He 
would  suffer,  but  the  pangs  from  which  He  would  save  ;  not  the  power 
of  darkness  which  would  seem  to  win  a  short-lived  triumph,  but  the  re- 
deeming victory — the  full,  perfect,  and  sufficient  atonement^these  we  may 
well,  though  reverently,  believe  to  have  been  the  subjects  which  domi- 
nated in  His  thoughts.  The  exquisite  beauty  of  the  Syrian  evening,  the 
tender  colors  of  the  spring  grass  and  flowers,  the  wadys  around  Him 
paling  into  solemn  gray,  the  distant  hills  bathed  in  the  primrose  light  of 
sunset,  the  coolness  and  balm  of  the  breeze  after  the  burning  glare — 
what  must  these  have  been  to  Him  to  whose  eye  the  world  of  Nature 
was  an  open  book,  on  every  page  of  which  He  read  His  Father's  name! 
And  this  was  His  native  lahd.  Bethany  was  almost  to  Him  a  second 
Nazareth;  those  whom  He  loved  were  around  Him,  and  He  was  going 
to  those  whom  He  loved.  Can  we  not  imagine  Him  walking  on  in  silence 
too  deep  for  words — His  disciples  beside  Him  or  following  Him — the 
gibbon  moon  beginning  to  rise  and  gild  the  twinkling  foliage  of  the  olive- 
trees  with  richer  silver,  and  moonlight  and  twilight  blending  at  each  step 
insensibly  with  the  garish  hues  of  day,  like  that  solemn  twilight-purple 
of  coming  agony  into  which  the  noonday  of  His  happier  ministry  had 
long  since  begun  to  fade  ? 


CHAPTER    LIV. 


THE     BEGINNING     OF     THE     END. 


..!o 


"  So  they  weighed  for  my  price  thirty  pieces  of  silver." — Zech.  xi.  12. 

T  WAS  inevitable  that  the  burning  words  of 
indignation  which  Jesus  had  uttered  on  this  last 
great  day  of  His  ministry  should  exasperate 
beyond  all  control  the  hatred  and  fury  of  the 
priestly  party  among  the  Jews.  Not  only  had 
they  been  defeated  and  abashed  in  open  en- 
counter in  the  very  scene  of  their  highest  dig- 
nity, and  in  the  presence  of  their  most  devoted 
adherents ;  not  only  had  they  been  forced  to 
confess  their  ignorance  of  that  very  Scripture 
exeofesis  which  was  their  recog^nized  domain,  and 
their  incapacity  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  a 
subject  respecting  which  it  was  their  professed 
duty  to  decide ;  but,  after  all  this  humiliation,  He 
whom  they  despised  as  the  young  and  ignorant  Rabbi  of  Nazareth — 
He  who  neglected  their  customs  and  discountenanced  their  traditions — He 
on  whost;  w^rds,  to  them  so  pernicious,  the  people  hung  in  rapt  atten- 
tion— had  suddenly  turned  upon  them,  within  hearing  of  the  very  Hall  of 
Meeting,  and  had  pronounced  upon  them — upon  thein  in  the  odor  of 
their  sanctity — upon  them  who  were  accustomed  to  breathe  all  their 
lives  the  incense  of  unbounded  adulation — a  woe  so  searching,  so  scathing, 
so  memorably  intense,  that  none  who  heard  it  could  forget  it  for  ever, 
more.  It  was  time  that  this  should  end.  Pharisees,  Sadducees,  Hero- 
dians.  Priests,  Scribes,  Elders,  Annas  the  astute  and  tyrannous,  Caiaphas 
the  abject  and  servile,  were  all  now  aroused  ;  and,  dreading  they  knew 
not  what  outburst  of  religious  anarchy,  which  would  shake  the  very 
fou  idations  of  their  system,  they  met  together,  probably  on  that  very 
evening,  in  the  Palace  of  Caiaphas,'   sinking    all    their  own  differences  in 

I  The  name  Caiaphas — a  surname  of  the  High   Priest  Joseph — is  only  another  form  of  Kephas,  "a 


1, 


5o8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

a  common  inspiration  of  hatred  against  that  long-promised  Messiah  in 
whom  they  only  recognized  a  common  enemy.  It  was  an  alliance,  for 
His  destruction,  of  fanaticism,  unbelief,  and  worldliness  ;  the  rage  of  the 
bigoted,  the  contempt  of  the  atheist,  and  the  dislike  of  the  utilitarian ; 
and  it  seemed  but  too  clear  that  from  the  revengeful  hate  of  such  a  com- 
bination no  earthly  power  was  adequate  to  save. 

Of  the  particulars  of  the  meeting  we  know  nothing ;  but  the  Evan- 
gelists record  the  two  conclusions  at  which  the  high  conspirators  arrived — 
the  one  a  yet  more  decisive  and  emphatic  renewal  of  the  vote  that  He 
must,  at  all  hazards,  be  put  to  death  without  delay  ;  the  other,  that  it 
must  be  done  by  subtlety,  and  not  by  violence,  for  fear  of  the  multitude; 
and  that,  for  the  same  reason — -not  because  of  the  sacredness  of  the 
Feast — the  murder  must  be  postponed,  until  tke  conclusion  of  the 
Passover  had  caused  the  dispersion  of  the  countless  pilgrims  to  their 
own  homes. 

This  meeting  was  held,  in  all  probability,  on  the  evening  of  Tuesday, 
while  the  passions  which  the  events  of  that  day  had  kindled  were  still 
raging  with  volcanic  energy.  So  that,  at  the  very  moment  while  they 
were  deciding  that  during  that  Easter-tide  cur  Passover  should  not  be 
slain — at  that  very  moment,  seated  on  the  slopes  of  Olivet,  Jesus  was 
foretelling  to  His  disciples,  with  the  calmest  certainty,  that  He  shotild  be 
sacrificed  on  the  very  day  on  which,  at  evening,  the  lamb  was  sacrificed, 
and  the  Paschal  feast  began. 

Accordingly,  before  the  meeting  was  over,  an  even^  occurred  which 
at  once  altered  the  conclusions  of  the  council,  and  rendered  possible  the 
immediate  capture  of  Jesus  without  the  tumult  which  they  dreaded.  The 
eight  days'  respite  from  the  bitter  sentence  of  death,  which  their  terror, 
not  their  mercy,  had  accorded  Him,  was  to  be  withdrawn,  and  the  secret 
blow  was  to  be  struck  at  once. 

For  before  they  separated  a  message  reached  them  which  shot  a 
gleam  of  fierce  joy  into  their  hearts,  while  we  may  well  imagine  that  it 
also  filled  them  with  something  of  surfJrise  and  awe.  Conscious  as  they 
must  have  been  in  their  inmost  hearts  how  deep  was  the  crime  which 
they  intended  to  commit,  it  must  have  almost  startled  them  thus  to  find 
"the  tempting  opportunity  at  once  meeting  the  guilty  disposition,"  a^^  * 
the  Evil  Spirit  making  their  way  straight  before  their  face.  They  we; 
informed  that  the  man  who  knew  Jesus,  who  had  been  with  Him,  wh 
had  been   His  disciple — nay,  more,  one  of  the  Twelve — was  ready  to  pu 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  509 

an  immediate  end  to  their  perplexities,  and  to  reopen  with  them  the 
communication  which  he  had  already  made. 

The  house  of  Caiaphas  was  probably  in  or  near  the  Temple  pre- 
cincts. The  gates  both  of  the  city  and  of  the  Temple  were  usually 
closed  at  sundown,  but  at  the  time  of  this  vast  yearly  gathering  it  was 
natural  that  the  rules  should  have  been  a  little  relaxed  for  the  general 
convenience  ;  and  when  Judas  slank  away  from  his  brethren  on  that  fatal 
evening  he  would  rely  on  being  admitted  without  difficulty  within  the 
city  precincts,  and  into  the  presence  of  the  assembled  elders.  He  applied 
accordingly  to  the  "  captains "  of  the  Temple,  the  members  of  the 
Levitical  guard  who  had  the  care  of  the  sacred  buildings,"  and  they  at 
once  announced  his  message,  and  brought  him  in  person  before  the 
priests  and  rulers  of  the  Jews. 

Some  of  the  priests  had  already  seen  him  at  their  previous  meetincr ; 
others  would  doubtless  recognize  him.  If  Judas  resembled  the  conception 
of  him  which  tradition  has  handed  down — 

"  That  furtive  mien,  that  scowling  eye, 
Of  hair  that  red  and  tufted  fell  " — 

they  could  have  hardly  failed  to  notice  the  man  of  Kerioth  as  one  of 
those  who  followed  Jesus — perhaps  to  despise  and  to  detest  Him,  as 
almost  the  only  Jew  among  the  Galilean  Apostles.  And  now  they  were 
to  be  leagued  with  him  in  wickedness.     The  fact  that  one  who  had  lived 

with  Jesus,  who  had  heard  all   He  had  said  and  seen  all   He  had  done 

was  yet  ready  to  betray  Him — strengthened  tlicm  in  their  purpose;  the 
fact  that  they,  the  hierarchs  and  nobles,  were  ready  not  only  to  praise, 
but  even  to  reward  Judas  for  what  he  proposed  to  do,  strengthened  him 
in  his  dark  and  desperate  design.  As  in  water  face  answereth  to  face, 
so  did  the  heart  of  Judas  and  of  the  Jews  become  assimilated  by  the 
reflection  of  mutual  sympathy.  As  iron  sharpeneth  iron,  so  did  the  blunt 
weapon  of  his  brutal  anger  give  fresh  edge  to  their  polished  hate. 

Whether  the  hideous  demand  for  blood-money  had  come  from  him, 
or  had  been  suggested  by  them ;  whether  it  was  paid  immediately  or  only 
after  the  arrest ;  whether  the  wretched  and  paltry  sum  given — thirty 
shekels,  the  price  of  the  meanest  slave' — was  the  total  reward,  or  only 
the  earnest  of  a  further  and  larger  sum — these  are  questions  which  would 
throw  a  strong  light  on  the  character  and  motives  of  Judas,  but  to  which 

1  See  2  Chron.  xxxv.  S  ;  .\cts  iv.  i  ;  v.  24. 

2  About  nineteen  dollars  (Exod.  xxi.  32;  cf.  Gen.  xxxvii.  28;  Zech.  xi.  12,  13). 


5IO  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  general  language  of  the  Evangelists  enables  us  to  give  no  certain 
answer.  The  details  of  the  transaction  were  probably  but  little  known. 
Neither  Judas  nor  his  venerable  abettors  had  any  cause  to  dwell  on  them 
with  satisfaction.  The  Evangelists  and  the  early  Christians  generally, 
when  they  speak  of  Judas,  seem  to  be  filled  with  a  spirit  of  shuddering 
abhorrence  too  deep  for  words.  Only  one  dark  fact  stood  out  before 
their  imagination  in  all  its  horror,  and  that  was  that  Judas  was  a  traitor  ; 
that  Judas  had  been  one  of  the  Twelve,  and  yet  had  sold  his  Lord. 
Probably  he  received  the  money,  such  as  it  was,  at  once.  With  the 
gloating  eyes  of  that  avarice  which  was  his  besetting  sin,  he  might  gaze 
on  the  silver  coins,  stamped  (oh  strange  irony  of  history  !)  on  one  side 
with  an  olive-branch,  the  symbol  of  peace,  on  the  other  with  a  censer, 
the  type  of  prayer,  and  bearing  on  them  the  superscription,  "  Jerusalem 
the  Holy."  And  probably  if  those  elders  chaffered  with  him  after  the 
fashion  of  their  race,  as  the  narrative  seems  to  imply,  they  might  have 
represented  that,  after  all,  his  agency  was  unessential ;  that  he  might  do 
them  a  service  which  would  be  regarded  as  a  small  convenience,  but 
that  they  could  carry  out  their  purpose,  if  they  chose,  without  his  aid. 
One  thing,  however,  is  certain  :  he  left  them  a  pledged  traitor,  and  hence- 
forth only  sought  the  opportunity  to  betray  his  Master  when  no  part  of 
the  friendly  multitude  was  near. 

What  were  the  motives  of  this  man  ?  Who  can  attempt  to  fathom 
the  unutterable  abyss,  to  find  his  way  amid  the  weltering  chaos,  of  a 
heart  agitated  by  unresisted  and  besetting  sins  ?  The  Evangelists  can 
say  nothing  but  that  Satan  entered  into  him.  The  guilt  of  the  man 
seemed  to  them  too  abnormal  for  any  natural  or  human  explanation. 
The  narratives  of  the  Synoptists  point  distinctly  to  avarice  as  the  cause 
of  his  ruin.  They  place  his  first  overtures  to  the  Sanhedrin  in  close 
and  pointed  connection  with  the  qualm  of  disgust  he  felt  at  being 
unable  to  secure  any  pilferings  from  the  "three  hundred  pence,"  of 
which,  since  they  might  have  come  into  his  possession,  he  regarded  him- 
self as  having  been  robbed  ;  and  St.  John,  who  can  never  speak  of  him 
without  a  shudder  of  disgust,  says  in  so  many  words  that  he  was  an  '_ 
habitual  thief.  How  little  insight  can  they  have  into  the  fatal  bondage 
and  diffusiveness  of  a  besetting  sin,  into  the  dense  spiritual  blindness 
and  awful  infatuation  with  which  it  confounds  the  guilty,  who  cannot 
believe  in  so  apparently  inadequate  a  motive !  Yet  the  commonest 
observance    of    daily    facts  which    come   before    our    notice    in    the    moral 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  511 

world,  might  serve  to  show  that  the  commission  of  crime  results  as  fre» 
quently  from  a  motive  that  seems  miserably  inadequate,  as  from  some 
vast  temptation.  Do  we  not  read  in  the  Old  Testament  of  those  that 
pollute  God  among  the  people  "  for  handfuls  of  barley  and  for  pieces  of 
bread  ;  "  of  those  who  sell  "  the  righteous  for  silver  and  the  poor  for  a 
pair  of  shoes  ? " '  The  sudden  crisis  of  temptation  might  seem  frightful, 
but  its  issue  was  decided  by  the  entire  tenor  of  his  previous  life  ;  the 
sudden  blaze  of  lurid  light  was  but  the  outcome  of  that  which  had  long 
burnt  and  smoldered  deep  within  his  heart. 

Doubtless  other  motives  mingled  with,  strengtl^ened — perhaps  to  the 
self-deceiving  and  blinded  soul  substituted  themselves  for — the  predominant 
one.  "Will  not  this  measure,"  he  may  have  thought,  "force  Him  to  de- 
clare His  Messianic  kingdom?  At  the  worst,  can  He  not  easily  save 
Himself  by  miracle?  If  not,  has  He  not  told  us  repeatedly  that  He  will 
die  ;  and  if  so,  why  may  I  not  reap  a  little  advantage  from  that  which 
is  in  any  case  inevitable  ?  Or  will  it  not,  perhaps,  be  meritorious  to  do 
that  of  which  all  the  chief  priests  approve?"  A  thousand  such  devilish 
suggestions  may  have  formulated  themselves  in  the  traitor's  heart,  and 
mingled  with  them  was  the  revulsion  of  feeling  which  he  suffered  from 
finding  that  his  self-denial  in  following  Jesus  would,  after  all;  be  appar- 
ently in  vain  ;  that  he  would  gain  from  it  not  rank  and  wealth,  but  only 
poverty  and  persecution.  Perhaps,  too,  there  was  something  of  rancor  at 
being  rebuked  ;  perhaps  something  of  bitter  jealousy  at  being  less  loved 
by  Jesus  than  his  fellows  ;  perhaps  something  of  frenzied  disappointment 
at  the  prospect  of  failure  ;  perhaps  something  of  despairing  hatred  at  the 
consciousness  that  he  was  suspected.  Alas  !  sins  grow  and  multiply  with 
fatal  diffusiveness,  and  blend'  insensibly  with  hosts  of  their  evil  kindred. 
"The  whole  moral  nature  is  clouded  by  them;  the  intellect  darkened; 
the  spirit  stained."  Probably  by  this  time  a  turbid  confused  chaos  of  sins 
was  weltering  in  the  soul  of  Judas — malice,  worldly  ambition,  theft,  hatred 
of  all  that  was  good  and  pure,  base  ingratitude,  frantic  anger,  all 
culminating  in  this  foul  and  frightful  act  of  treachery — all  rushing  with 
blind,  bewildering  fury  through  this  gloomy  soul. 

"Satan  entered  into  him."  That,  after  all,  whether  a  literal  or  a 
metaphorical  expression, ""  best  describes  his  awful  state.  It  was  a  madness 
of  disenchantment  from  selfish  hopes.      Having  persuaded  himself  that  the 

1  Ezek.  xiii.  19 ;  Amos  ii.  6  ;  viii.  6. 

2  "  Satan  "  is  sometimes,  if  not  always,  used  by  our  Lord  in  senses  obviously  metaphorical  (Matt.  xvi. 
23  ;  Luke  x.  iS  ;  xiii.  16,  &c.). 


512  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

New  Kingdom  was  a  mere  empty  fraud,  he  is  suffered  to  become  the 
victim  of  a  delusion,  which  led  him  into  a  terrible  conviction  that  he  had 
flung  away  the  substance  for  a  shadow.  It  had  not  been  always  thus 
with  him.  He  had  not  been  always  bad.  The  day  had  been  when  he 
was  an  innocent  boy — a  youth  sufficiently  earnest  to  be  singled  out  from 
other  disciples  as  one  of  the  Twelve — a  herald  of  the  New  Kingdom  not 
without  high  hopes.  The  poverty  and  the  wanderings  of  the  early  period 
of  the  ministry  may  have  protected  him  from  temptation.  The  special 
temptation — trebly  dangerous,  because  it  appealed  to  his  besetting  sin — 
may  have  begun  at  that  period  when  our  Lord's  work  assumed  a  slightly 
more  settled  and  organized  character.'  Even  then  it  did  not  master  him 
at  once.  He  had  received  warnings  of  fearful  solemnity;^  for  some  time 
there  may  have  been  hope  for  him  ;  he  may  have  experienced  relapses 
into  dishonesty  after  recoveries  of  nobleness.  But  as  he  did  not  master 
his  sin,  his  sin  mastered  him,  and  led  him  on,  as  a  slave,  to  his  retribu- 
tion and  ruin.  Did  he  slink  back  to  Bethany  that  night  with  the  blood- 
money  in  his  bag  ?  Did  he  sleep  among  his  fellow-apostles  ? — All  that 
we  know  is  that  henceforth  he  was  ever  anxiously,  eagerly,  suspiciously 
upon  the  watch. 

And  the  next  day — the  Wednesday  in  Passion  week — must  have  baf- 
fled him.  Each  day  Jesus  had  left  Bethany  in  the  morning  and  had  gone 
to  Jerusalem.  Why  did  He  not  go  on  that  day?  Did  He  suspect 
treachery?  That  day  in  the  Temple  Courts  the  multitude  listened  for 
His  voice  in  vain.  Doubtless  the  people  waited  for  Him  with  intense 
expectation;  doubtless  the  priests  and  Pharisees  looked  out  for  Him  with 
sinister  hope;  but  He  did  not  come.  The  day  was  spent  by  Him  in 
deep  seclusion  ;  so  far  as  we  know,  in  perfect  rest  and  silence.  He  pre- 
pared Himself  in  peace  and  prayer  for  the  awfulness  of  His  coming 
struo-gle.  It  may  be  that  He  wandered  alone  to  the  hilly  uplands  above 
and  around  the  quiet  village,  and  there,  under  the  vernal  sunshine,  held 
high  communing  with  His  Father  in  heaven.  But  how  the  day  was 
passed  by  Him  we  do  not  know.  A  veil  of  holy  silence  falls  over  it. 
He  was  surrounded  by  the  few  who  loved  Him  and  believed  in  Him. 
To  them  He  may  have  spoken,  but  His  work  as  a  teacher  on  earth 
was  done.  And  on  that  night  He  lay  down  for  the  last  time  on  earth. 
On  the  Thursday  morning.   He  woke  never  to  sleep  again. 

1  Luke  X.  3. 

2  John  vi.  70. 


CHAPTER     LV. 


THE    LAST    SUPPER. 


He  ate  not  the  legal  lamb 

^^^o^::  .,. ^ 


but  Himself  suffered  as  the  true  Lartib." — Chron.  Fasth.,  p.  u. 


N  THE    Tuesday    evening  in    Passion  week  Jesus 
had  spoken  of  the    Passover    as    the   season    of 
His    death.     If    the    customs    enjoined    by   the 
Law  had  been  capable  of    rigid    and    exact    ful- 
fillment, the  Paschal    lamb  for  the  use  of  Him- 
self and  His  disciples  would  have  been  set  apart 
on  the  previous  Sunday  evening ;  but  although, 
since  the  days  of   the    exile,  the    Passover   had 
been  observed,  it    is    probable  that  the  changed 
circumstances  of  the  nation  had  introduced  many 
natural  and  perfectly  justifiable    changes    in  the 
old  regulations.     It  would  have  been  a  simple  impossibility 
for  the  myriads  of  pilgrims    to    provide  themselves  before- 
hand with  a  Paschal  lamb. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  Thursday — Green  Thursday 
as  it  used  to  be  called  during  the  Middle  Ages — that  some  conversation 
took  place  between  Jesus  and  His  disciples  about  the  Paschal  feast. 
They  asked  Him  where  He  wished  the  preparation  for  it  to  be  made. 
As  He  had  now  withdrawn  from  all  public  teaching,  and  was  spending 
this  Thursday,  as  He  had  spent  the  previous  day,  in  complete  seclusion, 
they  probably  expected  that  He  would  eat  the  Passover  at  Bethany,  which 
for  such  purposes  had  been  decided  by  rabbinical  authority  to  be  within 
the  limits  of  Jerusalem.  But  His  plans  were  otherwise.  He,  the  true 
Paschal  Lamb,  was  to  be  sacrificed  once  and  for  ever  in  the  Holy  City, 
where  it  is  probable  that  in  that  very  Passover,  and  on  the  very  same 
day,  some  260,000  of  those  lambs  of  which  He  was  the  antitype  were 
destined  to  be  slain. 

Accordingly  He  sent    Peter    and    John  to  Jerusalem,  and  appointing 
for  them  a  sign  both  mysterious  and  secret,  told    them    that  on  entering 


514  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  gate  they  would  meet  a  servant  carrying  a  pitcher  of  water  from  one 
of  the  fountains  for  evening  use ;  following  him  they  would  reach  a  house, 
to  the  owner  of  which  they  were  to  intimate  the  intention  of  the  Master' 
to  eat  the  Passover  there  with  His  disciples;  and  this  householder — con- 
jectured by  some  to  have  been  Joseph  of  Arimathaea,  by  others  John 
Mark — would  at  once  place  at  their  disposal  a  furnished  upper  room, 
ready  provided  with  the  requisite  table  and  couches.'  They  found  all  as 
Jesus  had  said,  and  there  "made  ready  the  Passover."  Full  reasons  may, 
however,  be  given  for  believing  that  this  was  not  the  ordinary  Jewish 
Passover,  but  a  meal  eaten  by  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  on  the  pre- 
vious eveninor,  Thursday,  to  which  a  quasi-Paschal  character  was  given, 
but  which  was  intended  to  supersede  the  Jewish  festival  by  one  of  far 
deeper  and  diviner  significance. 

It  was  towards  the  evening,  probably  when  the  gathering  dusk  would 
prevent  all  needless  observation,  that  Jesus  and  His  disciples  walked  from 
Bethany,  by  that  old  familiar  road  over  the  Mount  of  Olives,  which  His 
sacred  feet  were  never  again  destined  to  traverse  until  after  death.  How 
far  they  attracted  attention,  or  how  it  was  that  He  whose  person  was 
known  to  so  many — and  who,  as  the  great  central  figure  of  such  great 
counter-agitations,  had,  four  days  before,  been  accompanied  with  shouts 
of  triumph,  as  He  would  be,  on  the  following  day,  with  yells  of  insult — 
could  now  enter  Jerusalem  unnoticed  with  His  followers,  we  cannot  tell. 
We  catch  no  glimpse  of  the  little  company  till  we  find  them  assembled 
in  that  "  large  upper  room " — perhaps  the  very  room  where  three  days 
afterwards  the  sorrow-stricken  Apostles  first  saw  their  risen  Saviour — 
perhaps  the  very  room  where,  amid  the  sound  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind 
each  meek  brow  was  first  mitered  with  Pentecostal  flame. 

When  they  arrived,  the  meal  was  ready,  the  table  spread,  the  triclinia 
laid  with  cushions  for  the  guests.  Imiglnation  loves  to  reproduce  all  the 
probable  details  of  that  deeply  moving  and  eternally  sacred  scene  ;  and 
if  we  compare  the  notices  of  ancient  Jewish  custom,  with  the  immemorial 
fashions  still  existing  in  the  changeless  East,  we  can  feel  but  little  doubt 
as  to  the  general  nature  of  the  arrangements.  They  were  totally  unlike 
those  with  which  the  genius  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  other  great 
painters,  has  made  us  so  familiar.  The  room  probably  had  white  walls, 
and  was  bare  of  all  except  the  most  necessary  furniture    and  adornment. 

1  Mark  xiv.  14.      The  expression  seems  to  imply  that  the  owner  of  the  house  was  a  disciple  ;  and  still 
more  the  message,  "  My  time  is  at  hand," 

2  Mark  xiv.  15. 


THE  LAST  SUPPER.  515 

The  couches  or  cushions,  each  large  enough  to  hold  three  persons,  were 
placed  around  three  sides  of  one  or  more  low  tables  of  gaily  painted 
wood,  each  scarcely  higher  than  stools.  The  seat  of  honor  was  the  cen- 
tral one  of  the  central  triclinium,  or  mat.  This  was,  of  course,  occupied 
by  the  Lord.  Each  guest  reclined  at  full  length,  leaning  on  his  left 
elbow,  that  his  right  hand  might  be  free."  At  the  right  hand  of  Jesus\ 
reclined  the  beloved  disciple,  whose  head  therefore  could,  at  any  moment, 
be  placed  upon  the  breast  of  his  friend  and  Lord. 

It  may  be  that  the  very  act  of  taking  their  seats  at  the  table  had, 
once  more,  stirred  up  in  the  minds  of  the  Apostles  those  disputes  about 
precedence'  which,  on  previous  occasions,  our  Lord  had  so  tenderly  and 
beautifully  rebuked.^  The  mere  question  of  a  place  at  table  might  seem 
a  matter  too  infinitesimal  and  unimportant  to  rufifle  the  feelings  of  good 
and  self-denying  men  at  an  hour  so  supreme  and  solemn  ;  but  that  love 
for  "the  chief  seats"  at  feasts  and  elsewhere,  which  Jesus  had  denounced 
in  the  Pharisees,  is  not  only  innate  in  the  human  heart,  but  is  even  so 
powerful  that  it  has  at  times  caused  the  most  terrific  tragedies. ••  But  at 
this  moment,  when  the  soul  of  Jesus  was  full  of  such  sublime  purpose — 
when  He  was  breathing  the  pure  unmingled  air  of  Eternity,  and  the 
Eternal  was  to  Him,  in  spite  of  His  mortal  investiture,  not  only  the 
present  but  the  seen — a  strife  of  this  kind  must  have  been  more  than 
ever  painful.  It  showed  how  little,  as  yet,  even  these  His  chosen  fol- 
lowers had  entered  into  the  meaning  of  His  life.  It  showed  that  the 
evil  spirits  of  pride  and  selfishness  were  not  yet  exorcised  from  their 
struggling  souls.  It  showed  that,  even  now,  they  had  wholly  failed  to 
understand  His  many  and  earnest  warnings  as  to  the  nature  of  His  king- 
dom, and  the  certainty  of  His  fate.  That  sotne  great  crisis  was  at  hand — 
that  their  Master  was  to  suffer  and  be  slain — they  must  have  partially 
realized ;  but  they  seem  to  have  regarded  this  as  a  mere  temporary 
obscuration,  to  be  followed  by  an  immediate  divulgence  of  His  splendor, 
and  the  setting  up  on  earth  of  His  Messianic  throne. 

In  pained  silence    Jesus    had  heard  their  murmured    jealousies,  while 

1  The  custom  of  eating  the  Passover  standing  had  long  been  abandoned.  Reclining  was'  held  to  be 
the  proper  attitude,  because  it  was  that  of  free  men, 

2  Luke  xxii,  24. 

3  Mark  ix.  34  ;  Matt,  xviii,  I,  It  is  a  not  impossible  conjecture  that  the  dispute  may  have  been  stirred 
up  by  a  claim  oi  Judas  as  being  an  office-bearer  in  the  little  band. 

4  Many  will  recall  the  famous  scene  between  Criemhilt  and  Brunhilt  in  the  A^iebilungin.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  blood  was  shed  at  the  very  altar  of  St.  John's  Lateran  in  a  furious  dispute  about  precedence  between 
the  Bishop  of  Hildesheim  and  the  mitered  Abbot  of  Fulda. 


5i6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

they  were  arranging  their  places  at  the  feast.  Not  by  mere  verbal  re- 
proof, but  by  an  act  more  profoundly  significant  and  touching,  He 
determined  to  teach  to  them,  and  to  all  who  love  Him,  a  nobler  lesson. 
Every  Eastern  room,  if  it  belongs  to  any  but  the  very  poorest,  has 
the  central  part  of  the  floor  covered  with  mats,  and  as  a  person  enters, 
he  lays  aside  his  sandals  at  the  door  of  the  room,  mainly  in  order  not 
to  defile  the  clean  white  mats  with  the  dust  and  dirt  of  the  road  or 
streets,  and  also  (at  any  rate  among  Mohammedans)  because  the  mat  is 
hallowed  by  being  knelt  upon  in  prayer.  Before  they  reclined  at  the 
table,  the  disciples  had  doubtless  conformed  to  this  cleanly  and  reason- 
able custom  ;  but  another  customary  and  pleasant  habit,  which  we  know 
that  Jesus  appreciated,  had  been  neglected.  Their  feet  must  have  been 
covered  with  dust  from  their  walk  along  the  hot  and  much-frequented 
road  from  Bethany  to  Jerusalem,  and  under  such  circumstances  they 
would  have  been  refreshed  for  the  festival  by  washing  their  feet  after 
putting  off  their  sandals.  But  to  wash  the  feet  was  the  work  of  slaves ; 
and  since  no  one  had  offered  to  perform  the  kindly  office,  Jesus  Himself, 
in  His  eternal  humility  and  self-denial,  rose  from  His  place  at  the  meal 
to  do  the  menial  service  which  none  of  His  disciples  had  offered  to  do 
for  Him."  Well  may  the  amazement  of  the  beloved  disciple  show  itself 
in  his  narrative,  as  he  dwells  on  every  particular  of  that  solemn  scene. 
"Though  He  knew  that  the  Father  had  given  all  things  into  His  hands, 
and  that  He  came  from  God  and  was  going  to  God,  He  arose  from  the 
supper  and  laid  aside  His  garments,  and  taking  a  towel,  girded  Himself." 
It  is  probable  that,  in  the  utterness  of  self-abnegation.  He  entirely 
stripped  His  upper  limbs,  laying  aside  both  the  sinicJiah  and  the  ceid?ici/i, 
as  though  He  had  been  the  meanest  slave,  and  wrapping  the  towel  round 
His  waist.  Then  pouring  water  into  the  large  copper  basin  with  which 
an  Oriental  house  is  always  provided,  He  began  without  a  word  to  wash 
His  disciples'  feet,  and  wipe  them  dry  with  the  towel  which  served  Him 
as  a  girdle.  Awe  and  shame  kept  them  silent  until  He  came  to  Peter, 
whose  irrepressible  emotions  found  vent  in  the  surprised,  half-indignant 
question,  "Lord,  dost  TJioic  seek  to  wash  my  feet?"  Thou,  the  Son  of 
God,  the  King  of  Israel,  who  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life — Thou, 
whose  feet  Oriental  kings  should  anoint  with  their  costliest  spikenard, 
and  penitents  bathe  in  precious  tears — dost  Thou  wash  Peter's  feet.  It 
was   the    old    dread    and    self-depreciation  which,  more    than    three  years 

I  John  xiii.  i — 20. 


THE  LAST  SUPPER.  517 

before,  had  prompted  the  cry  of  the  rude  fisherman  of  Galilee,  "  Depart 
from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord  ; "  it  was  the  old  self-will  which, 
a  year  before,  had  expressed  itself  in  the  self-confident  dissuasion  of  the 
elated  Man  of  Rock—"  That  be  far  from  Thee,  Lord ;  this  shall  not 
happen  unto  Thee."  Gently  recognizing  what  was  good  in  His  impetuous 
follower's  ejaculation,  Jesus  calmly  tells  him  that  as  yet  he  is  too  imma- 
ture to  understand  the  meaning  of  His  actions,  though  the  day  should 
come  when  their  significance  should  dawn  upon  him.  But  Peter,  obstinate 
and  rash — as  though  he  felt,  even  more  than  his  Lord,  the  greatness  of 
Him  that  ministered,  and  the  meanness  of  him  to  whom  the  service 
would  be  done — persisted  in  his  opposition  :  "  Never,  never,  till  the  end 
of  time,"  he  impetuously  exclaims,  "  shalt  Thou  wash  my  feet !"  But  then 
Jesus  revealed  to  him  the  dangerous  self-assertion  which  lurked  in  this 
false  humility.  "  If  I  wash  thee  not,  thou  hast  no  share  with  me."  Alike, 
thy  self-conceit  and  thy  self-disgust  must  be  laid  aside  if  thou  wouldest 
be  mine.  My  follower  must  accept  my  will,  even  when  he  least  can  com- 
prehend it,  even  when  it  seems  to  violate  his  own  conceptions  of  what  I 
am.  That  calm  word  changed  the  whole  current  of  thought  and  feelino- 
in  the  warm-hearted  passionate  disciple.  "No  share  with  Thee?  oh,  for- 
bid it.  Heaven !  Lord,  not  my  feet  only,  but  also  my  hands  and  my 
head!"  But  no:  once  more  he  must  accept  what  Christ  wills,  not  in  his 
own  way,  but  in  Christ's  way.  This  total  washing  was  not  needed.  The 
baptism  of  his  initiation  was  over ;  in  that  laver  of  regeneration  he  had 
'  been  already  dipped.  Nothing  more  was  needed  than  the  daily  cleansing 
from  minor  and  freshly-contracted  stains.  The  feet  soiled  with  the  clin"-- 
ing  dust  of  daily  sins,  these  must  be  washed  in  daily  renovation  ;  but  the 
heart  and  being  of  the  man,  these  were  already  washed,  were  cleansed, 
were  sanctified.  "Jesus  saith  to  him.  He  that  is  bathed  i\E\ov}xivoi)  hath 
no  need  save  to  wash  (yiipa<x6ai)  his  feet,  but  is  clean  every  whit. 
And  ye  are  clean;"  and  then  He  was  forced  to  add  with  a  deep  sio-h, 
"but  not  all."  The  last  words  were  an  illusion  to  His  consciousness  of 
one  traitorous  presence  ;  for  He  knew,  what  as  yet  ^/icy  knew  not,  that 
the  hands  of  the  Lord  of  Life  had  just  washed  the  traitor's  feet.  Oh, 
strange  unfathomable  depth  of  human  infatuation  and  ingratitude  !  that 
traitor,  with  all  the  black  and  accursed  treachery  in  his  false  heart,  had 
seen,  had  known,  had  suffered  it ;  had  felt  the  touch  of  those  kind  and 
gentle  hands,  had  been  refreshed  by  the  cleansing  water,  had  seen  that 
sacred    head    bent     over    his    feet,    stained   as    they   yet    were    with     that 


5l8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

hurried  secret  walk  which  had  taken  him  into  the  throng  of  sanctimonious 
murderers  over  the  shoulder  of  Olivet.  But  for  him  there  had  been  no 
purification  in  that  lustral  water;  neither  was  the  devil  within  him  exor- 
cised by  that  gentle  voice,  nor  the  leprosy  of  his  heart  healed  by  that 
miracle-producing  touch. 

The  other  Apostles  did  not  at  the  moment  notice  that  grievous  ex- 
ception— "but  not  all."  It  may  be  that  their  consciences  gave  to  all,  even 
to  the  most  faithful,  too  sad  a  cause  to  echo  the  words,  with  something 
of  misgiving,  to  his  own  soul.  Then  Jesus,  after  having  washed  their 
feet,  resumed  His  garments,  and  once  more  reclined  at  the  meal.  As  He 
leaned  there  on  His  left  elbow,  John  lay  at  His  right,  with  his  head 
quite  close  to  Jesus'  breast.  Next  to  John,  and  at  the  top  of  the  next 
mat  or  cushion,  would  probably  be  his  brother  James;  and — as  we  infer 
from  the  few  details  of  the  meal — at  the  left  of  Jesus  lay  the  Man  of 
Kerioth,  who  may  either  have  thrust  himself  into  that  position,  or  who, 
as  the  holder  of  the  common  purse,  occupied  a  place  of  some  prominence 
among  the  little  band.  It  seems  probable  that  Peter's  place  was  at  the 
top  of  the  next  mat,  and  at  the  left  of  Judas.  And  as  the  meal  began, 
Jesus  taught  them  what  His  act  had  meant.  Rightly,  and  with  proper 
respect,  they  called  Him  "Master"  and  "Lord,"  for  so  He  was;  yet, 
though  the  Lord  is  greater  than  the  slave,  the  Sender  greater  than  His 
Apostle,  He  their  Lord  and  Master  had  washed  their  feet.  It  was  a 
kind  and  gracious  task,  and  such  ought  to  be  the  nature  of  all  their 
dealino-s  with  each  other.  He  had  done  it  to  teach  them  humility,  to 
teach  them  self-denial,  to  teach  them  love  :  blessed  they  if  they  learnt 
the  lesson  !  blessed  if  they  learnt  that  the  struggles  for  precedence,  the 
assertions  of  claims,  the  standings  upon  dignity,  the  fondness  for  the  mere 
exercise  of  authority,  marked  the  tyrannies  and  immaturities  of  heathen- 
dom, and  that  the  greatest  Christian  is  ever  the  humblest.  He  should 
be  chief  among  them  who,  for  the  sake  of  others,  gladly  laid  on  himself 
the  lowliest  burdens,  and  sought  for  himself  the  humblest  services.  Again 
and  again  He  warned  them  that  they  were  not  to  look  for  earthly  reward 
or  earthly  prosperity ;  the  throne,  and  the  table,  and  the  kingdom,  and 
the  many  mansions  were  not  of  earth." 

And  then  again  the  trouble  of  His  spirit  broke  forth.      He  was  speak-, 
ing    of    those  whom  He  had  chosen ;    He  was  not  speaking  of    them  all. 

I   It  is  probable  that  to  find  the  full  scope  of  what  Jesus  taught  on  this  occasion  we  must  combine  (as  I 
have  done)  Luke  xxii.  24 — 30  with  John  xiii.  i — 17. 


THE  LAST  SUPPER.  519 

Among  the  blessed  company  sat  one  who  even  then  was  drawing  on  his 
own  head  a  curse.  It  had  been  so  with  David,  whose  nearest  friend  had 
become  his  bitterest  foe ;  it  was  foreordained  that  it  should  be  so  like- 
wise with  David's  Son.  Soon  should  they  know  with  what  full  fore- 
knowledge He  had  gone  to  all  that  awaited  Him;  soon  should  they  be 
able  to  judge  that,  just  as  the  man  who  receives  in  Christ's  name  His 
humblest  servant  receiveth  Him,  so  the  rejection  of  Him  is  the  rejection 
of  His  Father,  and  that  this  rejection  of  the  Living  God  was  the 
crime  which  at  this  moment  was  being  committed,  and  committed  in  their 
very  midst. 

There,  next  or  next  but  one  to  Him,  hearing  all  these  words  un- 
moved, full  of  spite  and  hatred,  utterly  hardening  his  heart,  and  leaning 
the  whole  weight  of  his  demoniac  possession  against  that  door  of  mercy 
which  even  now  and  even  here  his  Saviour  would  have  opened  to  him, 
sat  Judas,  the  false  smile  of  hypocrisy  on  his  face,  but  rage,  and  shame, 
and  greed,  and  anguish,  and  treachery  in  his  heart.  The  near  presence 
of  that  black  iniquity,  the  failure  of  even  His  pathetic  lowliness  to  move 
or  touch  the  man's  hideous  purpose,  troubled  the  human  heart  of  Jesus 
to  its  inmost  depths — wrung  from  Him  His  agony  of  yet  plainer  predic- 
tion, "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  that  one  of  you  shall  betray  me!" 
That  night  all,  even  the  best  beloved,  were  to  forsake  Him,  but  it  was 
not  that ;  that  night  even  the  boldest-hearted  was  to  deny  Him  with 
oaths,  but  it  was  not  that ;  nay,  but  one  of  them  was  to  betray  Him. 
Their  hearts  misgave  them  as  they  listened.  Already  a  deep  unspeak- 
able sadness  had  fallen  over  the  sacred  meal.  Like  the  somber  and 
threatening  crimson  that  intermingles  with  the  colors  of  sunset,  a  dark 
omen  seemed  to  be  overshadowing  them — a  shapeless  presentiment  of 
evil — an  unspoken  sense  of  dread.  If  all  their  hopes  were  to  be  thus 
blighted — if  at  this  very  Passover,  He  for  whom  they  had  given  up  all, 
and  who  had  been  to  them  all  in  all,  was  indeed  to  be  betrayed  by  one 
of  themselves  to  an  unpitied  and  ignominious  end — if  this  were  possible, 
anything  seemed  possible.  Their  hearts  were  troubled.  All  their  want 
of  nobility,  all  their  failure  in  love,  all  the  depth  of  their  selfishness,  all 
the  weakness  of  their  faith — 

"  Every  evil  thought  they  ever  thought, 
And  every  evil  word  they  ever  said. 
And  every  evil  thing  they  ever  did," 

all  crowded  upon  their  memories,  and  made  their  consciences  afraid.     None 


520  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  them  seemed  safe  from  anything,  and  each  read  his  own  self-distrust 
in  his  brother-disciple's  eye.  And  hence,  at  that  moment  of  supreme 
sadness  and  almost  despair,  it  was  with  lips  that  faltered  and  cheeks  that 
paled,  that  each  asked  the  humble  question,  "  Lord,  is  it  I  ? "  Better 
always  that  question  than  "Is  it  he?" — better  the  penitent  watchfulness 
of  a  self-condemning  humility  than  the  haughty  Pharisaism  of  censorious 
pride.  The  very  horror  that  breathed  through  their  question,  the  very 
trustfulness  which  prompted  it,  involved  their  acquittal.  Jesus  only  re- 
mained silent,  in  order  that  even  then,  if  it  were  possible,  there  might 
be  time  for  Judas  to  repent.  But  Peter  was  unable  to  restrain  his  sorrow 
and  his  impatience.  Eager  to  know  and  to  prevent  the  treachery — 
unseen  by  Jesus — he  made  a  signal  to  John  to  ask  "who  it  was." '  The 
head  of  John  was  close  to  Jesus,  and  laying  it  with  affectionate  trustful- 
ness on  his  Master's  breast,  he  said  in  a  whisper,  "Lord,  who  is  it?"' 
The  reply,  given  in  a  tone  equally  low,  was  heard  by  St.  John  alone, 
and  confirmed  the  suspicions  with  which  it  is  evident  that  the  repellent 
nature  of  Judas  had  already  inspired  him.  At  Eastern  meals  all  the 
guests  eat  with  their  fingers  out  of  a  common  dish,  and  it  is  customary 
for  one  at  times  to  dip  into  the  dish  a  piece  of  the  thin  flexible  cake  of 
bread  which  is  placed  by  each,  and  taking  up  with  it  a  portion  of  the 
meat  or  rice  in  the  dish,  to  hand  it  to  another  guest.  So  ordinary  an 
incident  of  any  daily  meal  would  attract  no  notice  whatever.  Jesus 
handed  to  the  traitor  Apostle  a  "sop"  of  this  kind,  and  this,  as  He  told 
St.  John,  was  the  sign  which  should  indicate  to  him,  and  possibly 
thro'»gh  him  to  St.  Peter,  which  was  the  guilty  member  of  the  little 
banu.  And  then  He  added  aloud,  in  words  which  can  have  but  one 
significance,  in  words  the  most  awful  and  crushing  that  ever  passed  His 
lips,  "The  Son  of  Man  goeth  indeed,  as  it  is  written  of  Him;  but  woe 
unto  that  man  by  whom  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  !  It  were  good  for 
that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born!"  "Words,"  it  has  been  well  said, 
"  of  immeasurable  ruin,  words  of  immeasurable  woe " — and  the  more 
terrible  because  uttered  by  the  lips  of  immeasurable  Love  ;  words  capable, 
if  any  were  capable,  of  revealing  to  the  lost  soul  of  the  traitor  all  the 
black  gulf  of  horror  that  was  yawning  before  his  feet.  He  must  have 
known  something  of  what  had  passed  ;  he  may  well  have  overheard  some 

1  Jo^n  xiii.  24. 

2  /»hn  xiii.  23.  The  impression  made  by  this  afifectionate  change  of  attitude  may  be  seen  from  John 
xxi.  2<j  <QV£7re(7cv,  literally,  "fell  back"),  and  the  change  from  lUtXvoa,  "bosom,"  to  ariidoa,  "breast," 
marks  the  eye-witness. 


THE  LAST  SUPPER.  521 

fragment  of  the  conversation,  or  at  least  have  had  a  dim  consciousness 
that  in  some  way  it  referred  to  him.  He  may  even  have  been  aware 
that  when  his  hand  met  the  hand  of  Jesus  over  the  dish  there  was  some 
meaning  in  the  action.  When  the  others  were  questioning  among  them- 
selves "which  was  the  traitor?"  he  had  remained  silent  in  the  defiant 
hardness  of  contempt  or  the  sullen  gloom  of  guilt  ;  but  now — stung,  it 
may, be,  by  some  sense  of  the  shuddering  horror  with  which  the  mere 
possibility  of  his  guilt  was  regarded — he  nerved  himself  for  the  shameful 
and  shameless  question.  After  all  the  rest  had  sunk  into  silence,  there 
grated  upon  the  Saviour's  ear  that  hoarse  untimely  whisper,  in  all  the 
bitterness  of  its  defiant  mockery — not  asking,  as  the  rest  had  asked,  in 
loving  reverence,  ''Lord,  is  it  I  ?"  but  with  the  cold  formal  title,  ''Rabbi, 
is  it  I  ?"  Then  that  low  unreproachful  answer,  "  Thou  hast  said,"  sealed 
his  guilt.  The  rest  did  not  hear  it ;  it  was  probably  caught  by  Peter 
and  John  alone  ;  and  Judas  ate  the  sop  which  Jesus  had  given  him,  and 
after  the  sop  Satan  entered  into  him.  As  all  the  winds,  on  some  night 
of  storm,  riot  and  howl  through  the  rent  walls  of  some  desecrated  shrine, 
so  through  the  ruined  life  of  Judas  envy  and  avarice,  and  hatred  and 
ingratitude,  were  rushing  all  at  once.  In  that  bewildering  chaos  of  a  soul 
spotted  with  mortal  guilt,  the  Satanic  had  triumphed  over  the  human  ; 
in  that  dark  heart  earth  and  hell  were  thenceforth  at  one  ;  in  that  lost 
soul  sin  had  conceived  and  brought  forth  death.  "  What  thou  art  doing, 
do  more  quickly,"  said  Jesus  to  him  aloud.  He  knew  what  the  words 
implied,  he  knew  that  they  meant,  "  Thy  fell  purpose  is  matured,  carry  it 
out  with  no  more  of  these  futile  hypocrisies  and  meaningless  delays." 
Judas  rose  from  the  feast.  The  innocent-hearted  Apostles  thought  that 
Jesus  had  bidden  him  go  out  and  make  purchases  for  to-morrow's  Pass- 
over, or  give  something  out  of  the  common  store  which  should  enable 
the  poor  to  buy  their  Paschal  lamb.  And  so  from  the  lighted  room, 
from  the  holy  banquet,  from  the  blessed  company,  from  the  presence  of 
his  Lord,  he  went  immediately  out,  and — as  the  beloved  disciple  adds, 
with  a  shudder  of  dread  significance  letting  the  curtain  of  darkness  fall 
for  ever  on  that  appalling  figure — -"and  it  was  night." 

We  cannot  tell  with  any  certainty  whether  this  took  place  before  or 
after  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper — whether  Judas  partook  or  not 
of  those  hallowed  symbols.  Nor  can  we  tell  whether  at  all,  or,  if  at  all,  to 
what  extent,  our  Lord  conformed  the  minor  details  of  His  last  supper  to 
the  half-joyous,  half-mournful  customs    of    the    Paschal    feast ;  nor,  again. 


522  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

can  we  tell  how  far  the  customs  of  the  Passover  in  that  day  resembled 
those  detailed  to  us  in  the  Rabbinic  writings.  Nothing  could  have  been 
simpler  than  the  ancient  method  of  their  commemorating  their  deliverance 
from  Egypt  and  from  the  destroying  angel.  The  central  custom  of  the 
feast  was  the  hasty  eating  of  the  Paschal  lamb,  with  unleavened  bread 
and  bitter  herbs,  in  a  standing  attitude,  with  loins  girt  and  shoes  upon  the 
feet,  as  they  had  eaten  hastily  on  the  night  of  their  deliverance.  In  this 
way  the  Passover  is  still  yearly  eaten  by  the  Samaritans  at  the  summit  of 
Gerizim,  and  there  to  this  day  they  will  hand  to  the  stranger  the  little 
olive-shaped  morsel  of  unleavened  bread,  inclosing  a  green  fragment  of 
wild  endive  or  some  other  bitter  herb,  which  may  perhaps  resemble, 
except  that  it  is  not  dipped  in  the  dish,  that  which  Judas  received  at  the 
hands  of  Christ. 

But  even  if  the  Last  Supper  was  a  Passover,  we  are  told  that 
the  Jews  had  long  ceased  to  eat  it  standing,  or  to  observe  the 
rule  which  forbade  any  guest  to  leave  the  house  till  morning.  They 
made,  in  fact,  many  radical  distinctions  between  the  Egyptian  and  the 
permanent  Passover  which  was  subsequently  observed.  The  latter  meal 
began  by  filling  each  guest  a  cup  of  wine,  over  which  the  head  of  the 
family  pronounced  a  benediction.  After  this  the  hands  were  washed  in 
a  basin  of  water,  and  a  table  was  brought  in,  on  which  were  placed  the 
bitter  herbs,  the  unleavened  bread,  the  charoscth  (a  dish  made  of  dates, 
raisins,  and  vinegar),  the  Paschal  lamb,  and  the  flesh  of  the  chagigah. 
The  father  dipped  a  piece  of  herb  in  the  charoseth,  ate  it,  with  a  bene- 
diction, and  distributed  a  similar  morsel  to  all.  A  second  cup  of  wine 
was  then  poured  out ;  the  youngest  present  inquired  the  meaning  of  the 
Paschal  night ;  the  father  replied  with  a  full  account  of  the  observance  ; 
the  first  part  of  the  Hallel  (Ps.  cxiii.,  cxiv.)  was  then  sung,  a  blessing 
repeated,  a  third  cup  of  wine  was  drunk,  grace  was  said,  a  fourth  cup 
poured  out,  the  rest  of  the  Hallel  (Ps.  cxv. — cxviii.)  sung,  and  the  cere- 
mony ended  by  the  blessing  of  the  song.  Some,  no  doubt,  of  the  facts 
mentioned  at  the  Last  Supper  may  be  brought  into  comparison  with 
parts  of  this  ceremony.  It  appears,  for  instance,  that  the  supper  began 
with  a  benediction,  and  the  passing  of  a  cup  of  wine,  which  Jesus  bade 
them  divide  among  themselves,  saying  that  He  would  not  drink  of  the  fruit 
of  the  vine  until  the  kingdom  of  God  should  come.'  The  other  cup — passed 
round  after  supper — has  been  identified  by  some   with  the  third  cup,  the 

I  Luke  xxii.  17. 


THE  LAST  SUPPER.  523 

Cds  ha-berdchah  or  "cup  of  blessing"  of  the  Jewish  ceremonial;'  and  the 
hymn  which  was  sung  before  the  departure  of  the  little  company  to 
Gethsemane  has,  with  much  probability,  been  supposed  to  be  the  second 
part  of  the  great  Hallel. 

The  relation  of  these  incidents  of  the  meal  to  the  various  Paschal 
observances  which  we  have  detailed  is,  however,  doubtful.  What  is  not 
doubtful,  and  what  has  the  deepest  interest  for  all  Christains,  is  the 
establishment  at  this  last  supper  of  the  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist.  Of 
this  we  have  no  fewer  than  four  accounts — the  brief  description  of  St. 
Paul  agreeing  in  almost  verbal  exactness  with  those  of  the  Synoptists. 
In  each  account  we  clearly  recognize  the  main  facts  which  St.  Paul 
expressly  tells  us  that  "  he  had  received  of  the  Lord  " — viz.,  that  the 
Lord  Jesus,  on  the  same  night  in  which  He  was  betrayed,  took  bread  ; 
and  when  He  had  given  thanks.  He  brake  it,  and  said,  'Take,  eat;  this 
is  my  body  which  is  broken  for  you;  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me.' 
After  the  same  manner  also  He  took  the  cup  when  He  had  supped,  say- 
ing 'This  cup  is  the  New  Testament  in  my  blood  ;  this  do  ye,  as  oft  as 
ye  drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me."'=  Never  since  that  memorable  even- 
ing has  the  Church  ceased  to  observe  the  commandment  of  her  Lord  ; 
ever  since  that  day,  from  age  to  age,  has  this  blessed  and  holy  Sacra- 
ment been  a  memorial  of  the  death  of  Christ,  and  a  strengthening  and 
refreshing  of  the  soul  by  the  body  and  blood,  as  the  body  is  refreshed 
and  strengthened  by  the  bread  and  wine.^ 

1  I  Cor.  X.  16. 

2  I  Cor.  xi.  23 — 25. 

3  The  "  transubstantiation  "  and  "sacramental"  controversies  which  have  raged  for  centuries  round 
the  Feast  of  Communion  and  Christian  love  are  as  heart-saddening  as  they  are  strange  and  needless.  They 
would  never  have  arisen  if  it  had  been  sufBciently  observed  that  it  was  a  characteristic  of  Christ's  teaching 
to  adopt  the  language  of  picture  and  of  emotion.  But  to  turn  metaphor  into  fact,  poetry  into  prose,  rhetoric 
into  logic,  parable  into  systematic  theology,  is  at  once  fatal  and  absurd.  It  was  to  warn  us  against  such 
error  that  Jesus  said  so  emphatically,  "His  tht  spirit  that  quickeneth ;  tht  flesh  projiteth  nothing:  the  words 
OM I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life  "  (John  vi.  63). 


CHAPTER   LVI. 


THE      LAST      DISCOURSE. 


6   eJI^   ^     t   eJ[3   c) 


"  So  the  All-Great  were  the  All-Loving  too  ; 
So,  through  the  thunder,  comes  a  human  voice, 
Saying,  'A  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here.'" 

— R.  Browning,  EpistU  of  Karshish. 

■<2 
O  SOONER    had    Judas    left    the   room,    than,    as 

though  they  had  been  relieved  of  some  ghastly 
incubus,  the  spirits  of  the  little  company  revived. 
The  presence  of  that  haunted  soul  lay  with  a 
weight  of  horror  on  the  heart  of  his  Mastar,  and 
no  sooner  had  he  departed  than  the  sadness  of 
the  feast  seems  to  have  been  sensibly  relieved. 
The  solemn  exultation  which  dilated  the  soul  of 
their  Lord — that  joy  like  the  sense  of  a  bound- 
less sunlight  behind  the  earth-born  mists — com- 
municated itself  to  the  spirits  of  His  followers. 
The  dull  clouds  caught  the  sunset  coloring.  In 
sweet  and  tender  communion,  perhaps  two  hours 
glided  away  at  that  quiet  banquet.      Now   it  was 


that,  conscious  of  the  impending  separation  and  fixed  unalterably  in  His 
sublime  resolve,  He  opened  His  heart  to  the  little  band  of  those  who 
loved  Him,  and  spoke  among  them  those  farewell  discourses  preserved 
for  us  by  St.  John  alone,  so  "  rarely  mixed  of  sadness  and  joys,  and 
studded  with  mysteries  as  with  emeralds."  "  Now,"  He  said,  as  though 
with  a  sigh  of  relief,  "  now  is  the  Son  of  Man  glorified,  and  God  is 
glorified  in  Him."  The  hour  of  that  glorification — the  glorification  which 
was  to  be  won  through  the  path  of  humility  and  agony — was  at  hand. 
The  time  which  remained  for  Him  to  be  with  them  was  short;  as  He 
had  said  to  the  Jews,  so  now  He  said  to  them,  that  whither  He  was 
going  they  could  not  come.  And  in  telling  them  this,  for  the  first  and 
last  time.  He  calls  them  "  little  children."  In  that  company  were  Peter 
and  John,  men  whose  words  and  deeds  should  thenceforth  influence  the 
whole  world  of  man  until  the  end — men  who  should    become    the  patron 


THE  LAST  DISCOURSE.  525 

saints  of  nations — in  whose  honor  cathedrals  should  be  built,  and  from 
whom  cities  should  be  named ;  yet  their  greatness  was  but  a  dim,  faint 
reflection  from  His  risen  glory,  and  a  gleam  caught  from  that  spirit 
which  He  would  send.  Apart  from  Him  they  were  nothing,  and  less 
than  nothing — ignorant  Galilean  fishermen,  unknown  and  unheard-  of 
beyond  their  native  village — having  no  intellect  and  no  knowledge  save 
that  He  had  thus  regarded  them  as  His  "  little  children."  And  though 
they  could  not  follow  Him  whither  He  went,  yet  He  did  not  say  to 
them,  as  He  had  said  to  the  Jews,"  that  they  should  seek  Him  and  not 
find  Him.  Nay,  more,  He  gave  them  a  new  commandment,  by  which, 
walking  in  His  steps,  and  being  known  by  all  men  as  His  disciples,  they 
should  find  Him  soon.  That  new  commandment  was  that  they  should 
love  one  another.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  it  was  not  new.'  Even  in  the 
law  of  Moses  (Lev.  xix.  18),  not  only  had  there  been  room  for  the 
precept,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  but  that  precept  had 
even  been  regarded  by  wise  Jewish  teachers  as  cardinal  and  inclusive — 
as  "the  royal  law  according  to  the  Scripture,"  as  "the  message  from  the 
beginning." 3  And  yet,  as  St.  John  points  out  in  his  Epistle,  though  in 
one  sense  old,  it  was  in  another  wholly  new — new  in  the  new  prominence 
given  to  it — new  in  the  new  motives  by  which  it  was  enforced — new 
because  of  the  new  example  by  which  it  was  recommended — new  from 
the  new  influence  which  it  was  henceforth  destined  to  exercise.  It  was 
Love,  as  the  test  and  condition  of  discipleship.  Love  as  greater  than 
even  Faith  and  Hope,   Love  as  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law.'' 

At  this  point  St.  Peter  interposed  a  question.  Before  Jesus  entered 
on  a  new  topic,  he  wished  for  an  explanation  of  something  which  he  had 
not  understood.  Why  was  there  this  farewell  aspect  about  the  Lord's 
discourse?  "Lord,  whither  goest  thou?" 

"  Whither  I  go  thou  canst  not  follow  me  now,  but  thou  shalt  follow 
me  afterwards." 

1  John  vii.  34 ;  viii.  21. 

2  And  it  is  observable  that  the  word  used  is  "  fresh,"  not  "  new." 

3  James  ii.  8 ;  i  John  iii.  11. 

4  "  For  life,  with  all  it  yields  of  joy  and  woe, 

And  hope  and  fear — believe  the  aged  friend — 
Is  just  our  chance  o'  the  prize  of  learning  love, 
How  love  might  be,  hath  been  indeed,  and  is  ; 
And  that  we  hold  henceforth  to  the  uttermost 
Such  prize,  despite  the  envy  of  the  world. 
And  having  gained  truth,  keep  truth  ;  that  is  all." 

— R.   Browni.ng,  a  Death  in  the  Desert. 


526  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Peter  now  understood  that  death  was  meant,  but  why  could  he  not 
also  die  ?  was  he  not  as  ready  as  Thomas  to  say,  "  Let  us  also  go  that 
we  may  die  with  Him?"'  "Lord,  why  cannot  I  follow  thee  now.  I  will 
lay  down  my  life  for  thy  sake." 

Why?  Our  Lord  might  have  answered,  Because  the  heart  is  deceitful 
above  all  things;  because  thy  want  of  deep  humility  deceives  thee;  be- 
cause it  is  hidden,  even  from  thyself,  how  much  there  still  is  of  cowardice 
and  self-seeking  in  thy  motives.  But  He  would  not  deal  thus  with  the 
noble-hearted  yet  weak  and  impetuous  Apostle,  whose  love  was  perfectly 
sincere,  though  it  did  not  stand  the  test.  He  spares  him  all  reproach ; 
only  very  gently  He  repeats  the  question,  "Wilt  thou  lay  down  thy  life 
for  my  sake  ?  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  The  cock  shall  not  crow 
till  thou  hast  denied  me  thrice!"  Already  it  was  night;  ere  the  dawn  of 
that  fatal  morning  shuddered  in  the  eastern  sky — before  the  cock-crow, 
uttered  in  the  deep  darkness,  prophesied  that  the  dawn  was  near — Jesus 
would  have  begun  to  lay  down  His  life  for  Peter  and  for  all  who  sin; 
but  already  by  that  time  Peter,  unmindful  even  of  this  warning,  should 
have  thrice  repudiated  his  Lord  and  Saviour,  thrice  have  rejected  as  a 
calumny  and  an  insult  the  mere  imputation  that  he  even  knew  Him.  All 
that  Jesus  could  do  to  save  him  from  the  agony  of  this  moral  humilia- 
tion— by  admonition,  by  tenderness,  by  prayer  to  His  Heavenly  Father — 
He  had  done.  He  had  prayed  for  him  that  his  faith  might  not  finally 
fail.'  Satan  indeed  had  obtained  permission  to  sift  them  all  ^  as  wheat, 
and,  in  spite  of  all  his  self-confidence,  in  spite  of  all  his  protested  devo- 
tion, in  spite  of  all  his  imaginary  sincerity,  he  should  be  but  as  the  chaff. 
It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  parallel  passage  of  St.  Luke  occurs  the 
only  instance  recorded  in  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  having  addressed 
Simon  by  that  name  of  Peter  which  He  had  Himself  bestowed.  It  is  as 
though  He  meant  to  remind  the  Man  of  Rock  that  his  strength  lay,  not 
in  himself,  but  in  that  good  confession  which  he  once  had  uttered.  And 
yet  Christ  held  out  to  him  a  gracious  hope.  He  should  repent  and 
return  to  the  Lord  whom  he  should  deny,  and,  when  that  day  should 
come,  Jesus  bade  him  show  that  truest  and  most  acceptable  proof  of 
penitence^the  strengthening  of  others.  And  if  this  fall  gave  only  too 
terrible  a  significance  to  his  Saviour's  warnings,  yet  his  repentance  nobly 
fulfilled  those  consolatory  prophecies ;   and  it  is  most    interesting  to  find 

1  John  xi.  1 6. 

2  Luke  xxii.  32,  "fail  utterly." 

3  Luke  xxii.  31.     Cf.  Araos.  ix.  9. 


THE  LAST  DISCOURSE.  527 

that  the  very  word  which  Jesus  had  used  to  him  recurs  in  his  Epistle 
in  a  connection  which  shows  how  deeply  it  had  sunk  into  his  soul.'  , 
But  Jesus  wished  His  Apostles  to  feel  that  the  time  was  come  when 
all  was  to  be  very  different  from  the  old  spring-tide  of  their  happy  mis- 
sion days  in  Galilee.  Then  He  had  sent  them  forth  without  purse  or 
scrip  or  sandals,  and  yet  they  had  lacked  nothing.  But  the  purse  and 
the  scrip  were  needful  now — even  the  sword  might  become  a  fatal  ne- 
cessity— and  therefore  "  he  that  hath  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  garment 
and  buy  one."  The  very  tone  of  the  expression  showed  that  it  was  not 
to  be  taken  in  strict  literalness.  It  was  our  Lord's  custom — because  His 
words,  which  were  spoken  for  all  time,  were  intended  to  be  fixed  as 
goads  and  as  nails  in  a  sure  place — to  clothe  His  moral  teachings  in  the 
form  of  vivid  metaphor  and  searching  paradox.  It  was  His  object  now 
to  warn  them  of  a  changed  condition,  in  which  they  must  expect  hatred, 
neglect,  opposition,  and  in  which  even  self-defense  might  become  a  para- 
mount duty  ;  but,  as  though  to  warn  them  clearly  that  He  did  not  mean 
any  immediate  effort — as  though  beforehand  to  discourage  any  blow  struck 
in  defense  of  that  life  which  He  willingly  resigned— He  added  that  the 
end  was  near,  and  that  in  accordance  with  olden  prophecy  He  should  be 
numbered  with  the  transgressors.'  But  as  usual  the  Apostles  carelessly 
and  ignorantly  mistook  His  words,  seeing  in  them  no  spiritual  lesson,  but 
only  the  barest  and  baldest  literal  meaning.  "  Lord,  behold  here  are  two 
swords,"  was  their  almost  childish  comment  on  His  words.  Two  swords! — 
as  though  that  were  enough  to  defend  from  physical  violence  His  sacred 
life!  as  though  that  were  an  adequate  provision  for  Him  who,  at  a  word, 
might  have  commanded  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels  !  as  though 
such  feeble  might,  wielded  by  such  feeble  hands,  could  save  Him  from 
the  banded  hate  of  a  nation  of  His  enemies!  "It  is  enough,"  He  sadly 
said.  It  was  not  needful  to  pursue  the  subject ;  the  subsequent  lesson  in 
Gethsemane  would  unteach  them  their  weak  misapprehensions  of  His 
words.  He  dropped  the  subject,  and  waving  aside  their  proffered 
swords,  proceeded  to  that  tenderer  task  of  consolation,  about  which  He 
had  so  many  things  to  say.  He  bade  them  not  be  troubled ;  they  be- 
lieved, and  their  faith  should  find  its  fruition.  He  was  but  leaving  them 
to  prepare  for  them  a  home  in  the  many  mansions  of  His  Father's 
house.     They  knew  whither  He  was  going,  and  they  knew  the  way. 

I   Luke  xxii.  32.     Cf.  i  Pet.  v.  10. 
I  Luke  xxii.  37 


528  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

"  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  thou  goest,  and  how  can  we  know  the 
way?"  is  the  perplexed  answer  of  the  melancholy  Thomas. 

"  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life,"  answered  Jesus  ;  "no  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me.  If  ye  had  known  me,  ye  should 
have  known  my  Father  also  ;  and  from  henceforth  ye  know  Him,  and  have 
seen  Him." 

Again  came  one  of  those  naive  interruptions — so  faithfully  and  vividly 
recorded  by  the  Evangelist — which  yet  reveal  such  a  depth  of  incapacity 
to  understand,  so  profound  a  spiritual  ignorance  after  so  long  a  course  of 
divine  training.'  And  we  may  well  be  thankful  that  the  simplicity  and 
ignorance  of  these  Apostles  is  thus  frankly  and  humbly  recorded  ;  for 
nothing  can  more  powerfully  tend  to  prove  the  utter  change  which  must 
have  passed  over  their  spirits,  before  men  so  timid,  so  carnal,  so  Judaic, 
so  unenlightened,  could  be  transformed  into  the  Apostles  whose  worth 
we  know,  and  who — inspired  by  the  facts  which  they  had  seen,  and 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  who  gave  them  wisdom  and  utterance — became, 
before  their  short  lives  were  ended  by  violence,  the  mightiest  teachers 
of  the  world. 

"Lord,  show  us  the  Father,"  said  Philip  of  Bethsaida,  "and  it 
sufificeth  us !  " 

"Show  us  the  Father!"  What  then  did  Philip  expect  ?  Some  earth- 
shaking  epiphany?  Some  blinding  splendor  in  the  heavens?  Had  he 
not  yet  learnt  that  He  who  is  invisible  cannot  be  seen  by  mortal  eyes  ; 
that  the  finite  cannot  attain  to  the  vision  of  the  Infinite  ;  that  they  who 
would  see  God  must  see  no  manner  of  similitude;  that  His  awful  silence 
can  only  be  broken  to  us  through  the  medium  of  human  voices.  His 
being  only  comprehended  by  means  of  the  things  that  He  hath  made? 
And  had  he  wholly  failed  to  discover  that  for  these  three  years  he  had 
been  walking  with  God?  that  neither  he,  nor  any  other  mortal  man, 
could  ever  know  more  of  God  in  this  world  than  that  which  should  be 
revealed  of  Him  by  "the  only-begotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father?" 

Again  there  was  no  touch  of  anger,  only  a  slight  accent  of  pained 
surprise  in  the  quiet  answer,   "  Have  I  been  so    long    with    you,  and    yet 

I  It  is  almost  needless  to  remark  how  utterly  inconsistent  are  some  of  the  modern  theories  about  the 
"tendency"  origin  of  St.  John's  Gospel  with  the  extraordinary  vividness  and  insight  into  character  dis- 
played by  this  narrative.  If  this  discourse,  and  the  incidents  which  accompanied  it,  were  otherwise  than 
real,  the  obscure  Gnostic  who  is  supposed  to  have  invented  it  must  have  been  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
spiritually-minded  men  of  genius  whom  the  world  has  ever  seen  ! 


^/2. 


's. 

■aV 

■  i. 

^^ 

lil 

^'V^ 

Christ  entering  Jerusale 


M. 


THE  LAST  DISCOURSE.  529 

hast  thou  not  known  me,  PhiHp  ?  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father,  and  how  sayest  thou  then,  Show  us  the  Father  ? " 

And  then  appeaHng  to  His  words  and  to  His  works  as  only  possible 
by  the  indwelling  of  His  Father,  He  proceeded  to  unfold  to  them  the 
coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  how  that  Comforter  dwelling  in  them 
should  make  them  one  with  the  Father  and  with   Him. 

But  at  this  point  Judas  Lebbseus  had  a  difficulty.'  He  had  not  under- 
stood that  the  eye  can  only  see  that  which  it  possesses  the  inherent 
power  of  seeing.  He  could  not  grasp  the  fact  that  God  can  become 
visible  to  those  alone  the  eyes  of  whose  understanding  are  open  so  that 
they  can  discern  spiritual  things.  "  Lord,  how  is  it,"  he  asked,  "  that  thou 
wilt  manifest  thyself  unto  us,  and  not  to  the  world?" 

The  difficulty  was  exactly  of  the  same  kind  as  Philip's  had  been — 
the  total  inability  to  distinguish  between  a  physical  and  a  spiritual  mani- 
festation ;  and  without  formally  removing  it,  Jesus  gave  them  all,  once 
more,  the  true  clue  to  the  comprehension  of  His  words — that  God  lives 
with  them  that  love  Him,  and  that  the  proof  of  love  is  obedience.  For 
all  further  teaching  He  referred  them  to  the  Comforter  whom  He  was 
about  to  send,  who  should  bring  all  things  to  their  remembrance.  And 
now  He  breathes  upon  them  His  blessing  of  peace,  meaning  to  add  but 
little  more,  because  His  conflict  with  the  prince  of  this  world  should 
now  begin. 

At  this  point  of  the  discourse  there  was  a  movement  among  the 
little  company.     "Arise,"  said  Jesus,   "let  us  go  hence." 

They  rose  from  the  table,  and  united  their  voices  in  a  hymn  which 
may  well  have  been  a  portion  of  the  Hallel,  and  not  improbably  the 
115th  to  the  1 1 8th  Psalm.  What  an  imperishable  interest  do  these 
Psalms  derive  from  such  an  association,  and  how  full  of  meanino-  must 
many  of  the  verses  have  been  to  some  of  them  !  With  what  intensity  of 
feeling  must  they  have  joined  in  singing  such  words  as  these — ".The 
sorrows  of  death  compassed  me,  the  pains  of  hell  gat  hold  upon  me  ;  I 
found  trouble  and  sorrow.  Then  called  I  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord ; 
O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee,  deliver  my  soul;"  or  again,  "What  shall  I 
render  unto  the  Lord  for  all  His  benefits  toward  me?  I  will  take  the 
cup  of  salvation,  and  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  ;  "  or  once  again, 
"  Thou  hast  thrust  sore  at  me  that  I  might  fall  :  but  the  Lord  helped 
me.     The  Lord  is  my  strength  and  my  song,  and  is  become  my  salvation. 

I  John  xiv.  22. 
34 


530  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

The    stone    which     the     builders     refused     is    become    the    head-stone    in 
the  corner.     This  is  the  Lord's  doing ;    it  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes." 

Before  they  started  for  their  moonlight  work  to  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane,  perhaps  while  yet  they  stood  around  their  Lord  when  the 
Hallel  was  over,  He  once  more  spoke  to  them.  First  He  told  them  of 
the  need  of  closest  union  with  Him,  if  they  would  bring  forth  fruit,  and 
be  saved  from  destruction.  He  clothed  this  lesson  in  the  allegory  of 
•'the  Vine  and  the  Branches."  There  is  no  need  to  find  any  immediate 
circumstance  which  suggested  the  metaphor,  beyond  the  "  fruit  of  the 
vine"  of  which  they  had  been  partaking;  but  if  any  were  required,  we 
might  suppose  that,  as  He  looked  out  into  the  night,  He  saw  the  moon- 
light silvering  the  leaves  of  a  vine  which  clustered  round  the  latticed 
window,  or  falling  on  the  colossal  golden  vine  which  wreathed  one  of  the 
Temple  gates.  But  after  impressing  this  truth  in  the  vivid  form  of 
parable,  He  showed  them  how  deep  a  source  of  joy  it  would  be  to  them 
in  the  persecutions  which  awaited  them  from  an  angry  world  ;  and  then 
in  fuller,  plainer,  deeper  language  than  He  had  ever  used  before,  He  told 
them  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  anguish  with  which  they  contemplated  the 
coming  separation  from  Him,  it  was  actually  better  for  them  that  His 
personal  presence  should  be  withdrawn  in  order  that  His  spiritual  presence 
mio-ht  be  yet  nearer  to  them  than  it  ever  had  been  before.  This  would 
be  effected  by  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  when  He  who  was  now 
with  them  should  be  ever  in  them.  The  mission  of  that  Comforter 
should  be  to  convince'  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judg- 
ment ;  and  He  should  guide  them  into  all  truth,  and  show  them  things 
to  come.  "  He  shall  glorify  me  ;  for  He  shall  receive  of  mine,  and  show 
it  unto  you."  And  now  He  was  going  to  His  Father ;  a  little  v/hile, 
and  they  should  not  see  Him  ;  and  again  a  little  while,  and  they  should 
see  Him. 

The  uncertainty  as  to  what  He  meant  carried  the  disciples  once  more 
to  questions  among  themselves  during  one  of  the  solemn  pauses  of  His 
discourse.  They  would  gladly  have  asked  Him,  but  a  deep  awe  was 
upon  their  spirits,  and  they  did  not  dare.  Already  they  had  several 
times  broken  the  current  of  His  thoughts  by  questions  which,  though  He 
did  not  reprove  them,  had  evidently  grieved  Him  by  their  emptiness,  and 
by  the  misapprehension  which  they  showed  of  all  that  He  sought  to  im- 
press upon  them.     So  their  whispered  questioning  died  away  into  silence, 

I  John  xvi.  8,  "he  shall  convince."     Cf.  John  viii.  g,  46;  Jude  15,  &c. 


THE  LAST  DISCOURSE.  531 

but  their  Master  kindly  came  to  their  relief.  This,  He  told  them,  was 
to  be  their  brief  hour  of  anguish,  but  it  was  to  be  followed  by  a  joy  of 
which  man  could  not  rob  them  ;  and  to  that  joy  there  need  be  no  limit, 
for  whatever  might  be  their  need  they  had  but  to  ask  the  Father,  and  it 
should  be  fulfilled.  To  that  Father  who  Himself  loved  them,  for  their 
belief  in  Him — to  that  Father,  from  whom  He  came.  He  was  now  about 
to  return. 

The  disciples  were  deeply  grateful  for  these  plain  and  most  consoling 
words.  Once  more  they  were  unanimous  in  expressing  their  belief  that 
He  came  forth  from  God.  But  Jesus  sadly  checked  their  enthusiasm. 
His  words  had  been  meant  to  give  them  peace  in  the  present,  and  cour- 
age and  hope  for  the  future  ;  yet  He  knew  and  told  them  that,  in  spite 
of  all  that  they  said,  the  hour  was  now  close  at  hand  when  they  should 
all  be  scattered  in  selfish  terror,  and  leave  Him  alone — yet  not  alone, 
because  the  Father  was  with  Him. 

And  after  these  words  He  lifted  up  His  eyes  to  heaven,  and  uttered 
His  great  High-Priestly  prayer;  first,  that  His  Father  would  invest  His 
voluntary  humanity  with  the  eternal  glory  of  which  He  had  emptied  Him- 
self when  He  took  the  form  of  a  servant:  next,  that  He  would  keep 
through  His  own  name  these  His  loved  ones  who  had  walked  with  Him 
in  the  world ;  and  then  that  He  would  sanctify  and  make  perfect  not 
these  alone,  but  all  the  myriads,  all  the  long  generations,  which  should 
hereafter  believe  through  their  word. 

And  when  the  tones  of  this  divine  prayer  were  hushed,  they  left  the 
guest-chamber,  and  stepped  into  the  moonlit  silence  of  the  Oriental  night. 


CHAPTER    LVII. 


GETHSEMANE — THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST. 


"  He  did  not  shudder  at  mere  death  ;  but  our  sins,  of  which  the  burden  had  been  laid  on  Him,  were 
crushing  Him  with  their  vast  weight." — Calvin. 


HEIR  way  led  them  through  one  of  the  city 
gates — probably  that  which  then  corresponded 
to  the  present  gate  of  St.  Stephen — down  the 
^  ;  steep  sides  of  the  ravine,  across  the  wady  of 
the  Kidron,"  which  lay  a  hundred  feet  below 
and  up  the  green  and  quiet  slope  beyond  it. 
To  one  who  has  visited  the  scene  at  that  very 
season  of  the  year  and  at  that  very  hour  of  the 
night — who  has  felt  the  solemn  hush  of  the 
silence  even  at  this  short  distance  from  the  city 
Ik  wall — who  has  seen  the   deep  shadows  flung  by 

sO-  the  great  boles  of  the  ancient  olive-trees,  and  the  checker- 
^  ing  of  light  that  falls  on  the  sward  through  their  moon- 
light-silvered leaves,  it  is  more  easy  to  realize  the  awe  which 
crept  over  those  few  Galileans,  as  in  almost  unbroken 
silence,  with  something  perhaps  of  secrecy,  and  with  a  weight  of  mys- 
terious dread  brooding  over  their  spirits,  they  followed  Him,  who 
with  bowed  head  and  sorrowing  heart  walked  before  them  to  His 
willing  doom." 

We  are  told  but  of  one  incident  in  that  last  and  memorable  walk 
through  the  -midnight  to  the  familiar  Garden  of  Gethsemane.'  It  was  a 
last    warning  to  the    disciples    in    general,  to  St.    Peter  in  particular.       It 

1  The  Kidron  is  a  ravine  rather  than  a  brook.  No  water  runs  in  it  except  occasionally,  after  unusu- 
ally heavy  rains.  Nor  can  we  see  any  special  significance — any  "  pathetic  fallacy" — in  the  name  Kidron, 
as  though  it  meant  "  the  dark  brook  in  the  deep  valley,"  v/ith  allusion  to  David's  humiliation  (i  Kings 
XV.  13),  and  idolatrous  abominations  (2  Kings  xiii.  4,  &c.),  and  the  fact  that  it  was  a  kind  of  sewer  for  the 
Temple  refuse.  "  There,"  says  Stier,  "surrounded  by  such  memorials  and  typical  allusions,  the  Lord 
descends  into  the  dust  of  humiliation  and  inguish,  ?.s  His  glorification  had  taken  place  upon  the  top  of  the 
mountain."  This  attempt  to  see  more  in  the  words  of  the  Gospel  than  they  can  fairly  be  supposed  to  convey 
would  soon  lead  to  all  the  elaborate  mysticism  and  trifling  of  Rabbinic  c-'-S'""'' 

2  Luke  xxii.  39. 

3  Matt.  xxvi.  31 — 35  ;  Mark  xiv.  27  ^31. 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.         533 

may  be  that  the  dimness,  the  silence,  the  desertion  of  their  position,  the 
dull  echo  of  their  footsteps,  the  stealthy  aspect  which  their  movements 
wore,  the  agonizing  sense  that  treachery  was  even  now  at  work,  were 
beginning  already  to  produce  an  icy  chill  of  cowardice  in  their  hearts ; 
sadly  did  Jesus  turn  and  say  to  them  that  on  that  very  night  they  should 
all  be  offended  in  Him— all  find  their  connection  with  Him  a  stumbling- ^ 
block  in  their  path — and  the  old  prophecy  should  be  fulfilled,  "  I  will 
smite  the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  shall  be  scattered  abroad."  And  yet, 
in  spite  of  all,  as  a  shepherd  would  He  go  before  them,  leading  the  way 
to  Galilee.'  They  all  repudiated  the  possibility  of  such  an  abandonment 
of  their  Lord,  and  Peter,  touched  already  by  this  apparent  distrust  of 
his  stability,  haunted  perhaps  by  some  dread  lest  Jesus  felt  any  doubt  of 
him,  was  loudest  and  most  emphatic  in  his  denial.  Even  if  all  should 
be  offended,  yet  never  would  he  be  offended.  Was  it  a  secret  misgiving 
in  his  own  heart  which  made  his  asseveration  so  prominent  and  so  strong? 
Not  even  the  repetition  of  the  former  warning,  that,  ere  the  cock  should 
crow,  he  would  thrice  have  denied  his  Lord,  could  shake  him  from  his 
positive  assertion  that  even  the  necessity  of  death  itself  should  never 
drive  him  to  such  a  sin.  And  Jesus  only  listened  in  mournful  silence  to 
vows  which  should  so  soon  be  scattered  into  air. 

So  they  came  to  Gethsemane,  which  is  about  half  a  mile  from  the 
city  walls.  It  was  a  garden  or  orchard,  marked  probably  by  some  slight 
inclosure ;  and  as  it  had  been  a  place  of  frequent  resort  for  Jesus  and 
His  followers,  we  may  assume  that  it  belonged  to  some  friendly  owner. 
The  name  Gethsemane  means  "  the  oil-press,"  and  doubtless  it  was  so 
called  from  a  press  to  crush  the  olives  yielded  by  the  countless  trees 
from  which  the  hill  derives  its  designation.  Any  one  who  has  rested  at 
noonday  in  the  gardens  of  En-gannim  or  Nazareth  in  spring,  and  can 
recall  the  pleasant  shade  yielded  by  the  interlaced  branches  of  olive  and 
pomegranate,  and  fig  and  myrtle,  may  easily  imagine  what  kind  of  spot 
it  was.  The  traditional  site,  venerable  and  beautiful  as  it  is  from  the 
age  and  size  of  the  gray  gnarled  olive-trees,  of  which  one  is  still  known 
as  the  Tree  of  the  Agony,  is  perhaps  too  public — being,  as  it  always 
must  have  been,  at  the  angle  formed  by  the  two  paths  which  lead  over 
the  summit  and  shoulder  of  Olivet — to  be  regarded  as  the  actual  spot. 
It  was  more  probably  one  of  the  secluded  hollows  at  no  great  distance 
from  it  which  witnessed  that  scene  of  awful  and    pathetic    mystery.     But 

I  Zech.  xiii.  7  ;  Matt.  xxvl.  32. 


534  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

although  the  exact  spot  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty,  the  general 
position  of  Gethsemane  is  clear,  and  then  as  now  the  checkering  moon- 
light, the  gray  leaves,  the  dark  brown  trunks,  the  soft  greensward,  the 
ravine  with  Olivet  towering  over  it  to  the  eastward  and  Jerusalem  to  the 
west,  must  have  been  the  main  external  features  of  a  place  which  will 
be  regarded  with  undying  interest  while  Time  shall  be,  as  the  place 
where  the  Saviour  of  mankind  entered  alone  into  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow. 

Jesus  knew  that  the  awful  hour  of  His  deepest  humiliation  had 
arrived — that  from  this  moment  till  the  utterance  of  that  great  cry  with 
which  He  expired,  nothing  remained  for  Him  on  earth  but  the  torture 
of  physical  pain  and  the  poignancy  of  mental  anguish.  All  that  the 
human  frame  can  tolerate  of  suffering  was  to  be  heaped  upon  his  shrink- 
ing body ;  every  misery  that  cruel  and  crushing  insult  can  inflict  was  to 
weigh  heavy  on  His  soul ;  and  in  this  torment  of  body  and  agony  of 
soul  even  the  high  and  radiant  serenity  of  His  divine  spirit  was  to  suffer 
a  short  but  terrible  eclipse.  Pain  in  its  acutest  sting,  shame  in  its  most 
overwhelming  brutality,  all  the  burden  of  the  sin  and  mystery  of  man's 
existence  in  its  apostacy  and  fall — this  was  what  He  must  now  face  in 
all  its  most  inexplicable  accumulation.  But  one  thing  remained  before 
the  actual  struggle,  the  veritable  agony,  began.  He  had  to  brace  His 
body,  to  nerve  His  soul,  to  calm  His  spirit  by  prayer  and  solitude  to 
meet  that  hour  in  which  all  that  is  evil  in  the  Power  of  Evil  should 
wreak  its  worst  upon  the  Innocent  and  Holy.  And  He  must  face  that 
hour  alone  :  no  human  eye  must  witness,  except  through  the  twilight 
and  shadow,  the  depth  of  His  suffering.  Yet  He  would  have  gladly 
shared  their  sympathy  ;  it  helped  Him  in  this  hour  of  darkness  to  feel 
that  they  were  near,  and  that  those  were  nearest  who  loved  Him  best. 
"Stay  here,"  He  said  to  the  majority,  "while  I  go  there  and  pray." 
Leaving  them  to  sleep  on  the  grass,  each  wrapped  in  his  outer  garment, 
He  took  with  Him  Peter  and  James  and  John,  and  went  about  a  stone's- 
throw  farther.  It  was  well  that  Peter  should  face  all  that  was  involved 
in  allegiance  to  Christ  :  it  was  well  that  James  and  John  should  know 
what  was  that  cup  which  they  had  desired  pre-eminently  to  drink.  But 
soon  even  the  society  of  these  chosen  and  trusted  ones  was  more  than 
He  could  bear. 

A  grief  beyond  utterance,  a  struggle  beyond  endurance,  a  horror 
of   great    darkness,  a    giddiness   and    stupefaction    of    soul    over-mastered 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.         535 

Him,  as  with  the  sinking  swoon  of  an  anticipated  death."  It  was 
a  tumult  of  emotion  which  none  must  see.  "  My  soul,"  He  said, 
"is  full  of  anguish,  even  unto  death.  Stay  here  and  keep  watch."  Re- 
luctantly He  tore  Himself  away  from  their  sustaining  tenderness  and 
devotion,^  and  retired  yet  farther,  perhaps  out  of  the  moonlight  into  the 
shadow.  And  there,  until  slumber  overpowered  them,  they  were  conscious 
of  how  dreadful  was  that  paroxysm  of  prayer  and  suffering  through  which 
He  passed.  They  saw  Him  sometimes  on  His  knees,  sometimes  out- 
stretched in  prostrate  supplication  upon  the  damp  ground  ;3  they  heard 
snatches  of  the  sounds  of  murmured  anguish  in  which  His  humanity 
pleaded  with  the  divine  will  of  His  Father.  The  actual  words  might 
vary,  but  the  substance  was  the  same  throughout.  "Abba,  Father,  all 
things  are  possible  unto  Thee;  take  away  this  cup  from  me;  neverthe- 
less, not  what  I  will,  but  what    Thou  wilt."" 

And  that  prayer  in  all  its  infinite  reverence  and  awe  was  heard  ;5  that 
strong  crying  and  those  tears  were  not  rejected.  We  may  not  intrude 
too  closely  into  this  scene.  It  is  shrouded  in  a  halo  and  a  mystery  into 
which  no  footstep  may  penetrate.  We,  as  we  contemplate  it,  are  like 
those  disciples — our  senses  are  confused,  our  perceptions  are  not  clear. 
We  can  but  enter  into  their  amazement  and  sore  distress.  Half  waking, 
half  oppressed  with  an  irresistible  weight  of  troubled  slumber,  they  only 
felt  that  they  were  dim  witnesses  of  an  unutterable  agony,  far  deeper 
than  anything  which  they  could  fathom,  as  it  far  transcended  all  that, 
even  in  our  purest  moments,  we  can  pretend  to  understand.  The  place 
seems  haunted  by  presences  of  good  and  evil,  struggling  in  mighty  but 
silent  contest  for  the  eternal  victory.  They  see  Him,  before  whom  the 
demons  had  fled  in  howling  terror,  lying  on  His  face  upon  the  ground. 
They  hear  that  voice  wailing  in  murmurs  of  broken  agony,  which  had 
commanded  the  wind  and  the  sea,  and  they  obeyed  Him.  The  great 
drops  of  anguish  which  drop  from  Him  in  the  deathful  struggle,  look  to 
them  like  heavy  gouts  of   blood.      Under  the  dark  shadows  of   the  trees, 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  37  ;  Mark  xiv.  33.  Cf.  Job  xviii.  20  ;  Ps.  cxvi.  11.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  verse  (Matt. 
xxvi.  38),  and  John  xii  27,  are  the  only  passages  where  Jesus  used  the  word  V^^?),  "  soul,"  or  "  principle  of 
life,"  of  Himself. 

2  Luke  xxii.  41.     Cf.  Acts  xxi.  i. 

3  Luke  xxii.  41.     Matt.  xxvi.  39. 

4  Nothing,  as  Dean  Alford  remarks,  could  prove  more  decisively  the  insignificance  of  the  letter  in 
comparison  with  the  spirit,  than  the  fact  that  the  Three  Evangelists  vary  in  the  actual  expression  of  the 
prayer. 

5  Heb.  v.  7. 


536  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

amid  the  interrupted  moonlight,  it  seems  to  them  that  there  is  an  angel 
with  Him,  who  supports  His  failing  strength,  who  enables  Him  to  rise 
victorious  from  those  first  prayers  with  nothing  but  the  crimson  traces 
of  that  bitter  struggle  upon  His  brow. 

And  whence  came  all  this  agonized  failing  of  heart,  this  fearful 
amazement,  this  horror  of  great  darkness,  this  passion  which  almost 
brought  Him  down  to  the  grave  before  a  single  pang  had  been  inflicted 
upon  Him — which  forced  from  Him  the  sweat  that  streamed  like  drops 
of  blood — which  almost  prostrated  body,  and  soul,  and  spirit  with  one 
final  blow  ?  Was  it  the  mere  dread  of  death — the  mere  effort  and  de- 
termination to  face  that  which  He  foreknew  in  all  its  dreadfulness,  but 
from  which,  nevertheless,  His  soul  recoiled?  There  have  been  those  who 
have  dared — I  can  scarcely  write  it  without  shame  and  sorrow- — to  speak 
very  slightingly  about  Gethsemane ;  to  regard  that  awful  scene,  from  the 
summit  of  their  ignorant  presumption,  with  an  almost  contemptuous  dis- 
like— to  speak  as  though  Jesus  had  there  shown  a  cowardly  sensibility. 
Thus,  at  the  very  moment  when  we  should  most  wonder  and  admire, 
they 

"  Not  even  from  the  Holy  One  of  Heaven 
Refrain  their  tongues  blasphemous."' 

And  yet,  if  no  other  motive  influence  them — if  they  merely  regard  Him 
as  a  Prophet  preparing  for  a  cruel  death — if  no  sense  of  decency,  no 
power  of  sympathy,  restrain  them  from  thus  insulting  even  a  Martyr's 
agony  at  the  moment  when  its  pang  was  most  intense — does  not  common 
fairness,  does  not  the  most  ordinary  historic  criticism,  show  them  how 
cold  and  false,  if  nothing  worse,  must  be  the  miserable  insensibility  which 
prevents  them  from  seeing  that  it  could  have  been  no  mere  dread  of 
pain,  no  mere  shrinking  from  death,  which  thus  agitated  to  its  inmost 
center  the  pure  and  innocent  soul  of  the  Son  of  Man  ?  Could  not  even 
a  child  see  how  inconsistent  would  be  such  an  hypothesis  with  that 
heroic  fortitude  which  fifteen  hours  of  subsequent  sleepless  agony  could  not 
disturb — with  the  majestic  silence  before  priest,  and  procurator,  and  king — 
with  the  endurance  from  which  the  extreme  of  torture  could  not  wring 
one  cry — with  the  calm  and  infinite  ascendency  which  overawed  the  hard- 
ened and  worldly  Roman  into  involuntary  respect — with  the  undisturbed 
supremacy  of  soul  which  opened  the  gates  of  Paradise  to  the  repentant 
malefactor,  and  breathed  compassionate  forgiveness  on  the  apostate  priests  ? 
The  Son  of  Man  humiliated  into  prostration  by  the  mere  abjecl.    ."ear  of 

1  Ps.  xl.  13. 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.        537 

death,  which  trembling  old  men,  and  feeble  maidens,  and  timid  boys — a 
Polycarp,  a  Blandina,  an  Attalus — have  yet  braved  without  a  sigh  or  a 
shudder,  solely  through  faith  in  His  name!  Strange  that  He  should  be 
thus  insulted  by  impious  tongues,  who  brought  to  light  that  life  and  im- 
mortality from  whence  came  the 

"  Ruendi 
In  (errum  mens  prona  viris,  animaeque  capaces 
Mortis,  et  ignavum  rediturae  parcere  vitae  1"« 

The  meanest  of  idiots,  the  coarsest  of  criminals,  have  advanced  to  the 
scaffold  without  a  tremor  or  a  sob,  and  many  a  brainless  and  brutal  mur- 
derer has  mounted  the  ladder  with  a  firm  step,  and  looked  round  upon 
a  yelling  mob  with  an  unflinching  countenance.  To  adopt  the  common- 
place of  orators,  "  There  is  no  passion  in  the  mind  of  man  so  weak  but 
it  mates  and  masters  the  fear  of  death.  Revenge  triumphs  over  death ; 
love  slights  it ;  honor  aspireth  to  it ;  grief  flieth  to  it ;  fear  pre-occupateth 
it.  A  man  would  die,  though  he  were  neither  valiant  nor  miserable,  only 
upon  a  weariness  to  do  the  same  thing  so  oft  over  and  over.  It  is  no 
less  worthy  to  observe  how  little  alteration  in  good  spirits  the  approaches 
of  death  make  :  for  they  appear  to  be  the  same  men  till  the  last  instant." 
It  is  as  natural  to  die  as  to  be  born.  The  Christian  hardly  needs  to  be 
told  that  it  was  no  such  vulgar  fear  which  forced  from  his  Saviour  that 
sweat  of  blood.  No,  it  was  something  infinitely  more  than  this  :  infinitely 
more  than  the  highest  stretch  of  our  imagination  can  realize.  It  was 
something  far  deadlier  than  death.  It  was  the  burden  and  the  mystery 
of  the  world's  sin  which  lay  heavy  on  His  heart ;  it  was  the  tasting,  in 
the  divine  humanity  of  a  sinless  life,  the  bitter  cup  which  sin  had  pois- 
oned ;  it  was  the  bowing  of  Godhead  to  endure  a  stroke  to  which  man's 
apostacy  had  lent  such  frightful  possfbilities.  It  was  the  sense,  too,  of 
how  virulent,  how  frightful,  must  have  been  the  force  of  evil  in  the  Uni- 
verse of  God  which  could  render  necessary  so  infinite  a  sacrifice.  It  was 
the  endurance,  by  the  perfectly  guiltless,  of  the  worst  malice  which  human 
hatred  could  devise ;  it  was  to  experience  in  the  bosom  of  perfect  inno- 
cence and  perfect  love,  all  that  was  detestable  in  human  ingratitude,  all 
that  was  pestilent  in  human  hypocrisy,  ail  that  was  cruel  in  human  rage. 
It  was  to  brave  the  last  triumph  of  Satanic  spite  and  fury,  uniting  against 
His  lonely  head  all  the  flaming  arrows  of  Jewish  falsity  and  heathen  cor- 
ruption— the  concentrated  wrath  of   the  rich  and  respectable,  the    yelling 

I  Luc.  Phars.  i.  455.     "  Courage  of  heroes  ready  to  rush  upon  the  sword,  and  seirits  larae  euCUgk  {•' 
death,  and  the  slothfulness  of  sparing  a  life  that  will  return." 


538  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY! 

fury  of  the  blind  and  brutal  mob.  It  was  to  feel  that  His  own,  to  whom 
He  came,  loved  darkness  rather  than  light — that  the  race  of  the  chosen 
people  could  be  wholly  absorbed  in  one  insane  repulsion  against  infinite 
goodness  and  purity  and  love. 

Through  all  this  He  passed  in  that  hour  during  which,  with  a  recoil 
of  sinless  horror  beyond  our  capacity  to  conceive,  He  foretasted  a  worse 
bitterness  than  the  worst  bitterness  of  death.  And  after  a  time — victor- 
ious indeed,  but  weary  almost  to  fainting,  like  His  ancestor  Jacob,  with 
the  struggle  of  those  supplications — He  came  to  seek  one  touch  of  human 
support  and  human  sympathy  from  the  chosen  of  the  chosen — His  three 
Apostles.  Alas  !  He  found  them  sleeping.  It  was  an  hour  of  fear  and 
peril ;  yet  no  certainty  of  danger,  no  love  for  Jesus,  no  feeling  for  His 
unspeakable  dejection,  had  sufficed  to  hold  their  eyes  waking.  Their 
grief,  their  weariness,  their  intense  excitement,  had  sought  relief  in  heavy 
slumber.  Even  Peter,  after  all  his  impetuous  promises,  lay  in  deep  sleep, 
for  his  eyes  were  heavy.  "Simon,  sleepest  thou?"  was  all  He  said.  As 
the  sad  reproachful  sentence  fell  on  their  ears,  and  startled  them  from 
their  slumbers,  "Were  ye  so  unable,"  He  asked,  "to  watch  with  me  a 
single  hour  ?  Watch  and  pray  that  ye  enter  not  into  temptation."  And 
then,  not  to  palliate  their  failure,  but  rather  to  point  out  the  peril  of  it, 
"  The  spirit,"   He  added,  "  is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is  weak." 

Once  more  He  left  them,  and  again,  with  deeper  intensity,  repeated 
the  same  prayer  as  before,  and  in  a  pause  of  His  emotion  came  back  to 
His  disciples.  But  they  had  once  more  fallen  asleep  ;  nor,  when  He 
awoke  them,  could  they,  in  their  heaviness  and  confusion,  find  anything 
to  say  to  Him.  Well  might  He  have  said,  in  the  words  of  David, 
"  Thy  rebuke  hath  broken  my  heart ;  I  am  full  of  heaviness ;  I  looked 
for  some  to  have  pity  on  me,  but  there  Avas  no  man,  neither  found  I 
any  to  comfort  me."' 

For  the  third  and  last  time — but  now  with  a  deeper  calm,  and  a 
brighter  serenity  of  that  triumphant  confidence  which  had  breathed 
through  the  High-Priestly  prayer — He  withdrew  to  find  His  only  con- 
solation in  communing  with  God.  Arid  there  He  found  all  that  He 
needed.  Before  that  hour  was  over  He  was  prepared  for  the  worst  that 
Satan  or  man  could  do.  He  knew  all  that  would  befall  Him;  perhaps 
He  had  already  caught  sight  of  the  irregular  glimmering  of  lights  as 
His  pursuers  descended   from   the  Temple   precincts.     Yet   there  was   no 

I   Ps.  Ixix.  20. 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.         539 

trace  of  agitation  in  His  quiet  words  when,  coming  a  third  time  and 
finding  them  once  more  sleeping,  "  Sleep  on  now,"  He  said,  "  and  take 
your  rest.  It  is  enough.  The  hour  is  come.  Lo !  the  Son  of  Man  is 
being  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  sinners."  For  all  the  aid  that  you  can 
render,  for  all  the  comfort  your  sympathy  can  bestow,  sleep  on.  But  all 
is  altered  now.  It  is  not  I  who  now  wish  to  break  these  your  heavy 
slumbers.  They  will  be  very  rudely  and  sternly  broken  by  others. 
"Rise,  then;  let  us  be  going.  Lo  !  he  that  betrayeth  me  is  at  hand."' 
Yes,  it  was  more  than  time  to  rise,  for  while  saints  had  slumbered 
sinners  had  plotted  and  toiled  in  exaggerated  preparation.  While  they 
slept  in  their  heavy  anguish,  the  traitor  had  been  very  wakeful  in  his 
active  malignity.  More  than  two  hours  had  passed  since  from  the  lighted 
chamber  of  their  happy  communion  he  had  plunged  into  the  night,  and 
those  hours  had  been  very  fully  occupied.  He  had  gone  to  the  High 
Priests  and  Pharisees,  agitating  them  and  hurrying  them  on  with  his  own 
passionate  precipitancy;  and  partly  perhaps  out  of  genuine  terror  of  Him 
with  whom  he  had  to  Aea\,  partly  to  enhance  his  own  importance,  had 
got  the  leading  Jews  to  furnish  him  with  a  motley  band  composed  of 
their  own  servants,  of  the  Temple  watch  with  their  officers,  and  even 
with  a  part  at  least  of  the  Roman  garrison  from  the  Tower  of  Antonia, 
under  the  command  of  their  tribune.  They  were  going  against  One  who 
was  deserted  and  defenseless,  yet  the  soldiers  were  armed  with  swords, 
and  even  the  promiscuous  throng  had  provided  themselves  with  sticks. 
They  were  going  to  seize  One  who  would  make  no  attempt  at  flight  or 
concealment,  and  the  full  moon  shed  its  luster  on  their  unhallowed 
expedition  ;  yet,  lest  He  should  escape  them  in  some  limestone  grotto, 
or  in  the  deep  shade  of  the  olives,  they  carried  lanterns  and  torches  in 
their  hands.  It  is  evident  that  they  made  their  movements  as  noiselessly 
and  stealthily  as  possible  ;  but  at  night  a  deep  stillness  hangs  over  an 
Oriental  city,  and  so  large  a  throng  could  not  move  unnoticed.  Already, 
as  Jesus  was  awaking  His  sleepy  disciples,  His  ears  had  caught  in  the 
distance  the  clank  of  swords,  the  tread  of  hurrying  footsteps,  the  ill-sup- 
pressed tumult  of  an  advancing  crowd.  He  knew  all  that  awaited  Him  ; 
He  knew  that  the  quiet  garden  which  He  had  loved,  and  where  He  had 
so  often  held  happy  intercourse  with  His  disciples,  was  familiar  to  the 
traitor.     Those    unwonted    and    hostile    sounds,  that    red    glare  of    lamps 

I  It  has  been  asked  why  St.  John  tells  us  nothing  of  the  agony  ?  We  do  not  know  ;  but  it  may  very 
likely  have  been  because  the  story  had  already  been  told  as  fully  as  it  was  known.  Certainly,  his  silence 
did  not  spring  from  any  notion  that  the  agony  was  unworthy  of  Christ's  grandeur  (see  xii.  27  ;  xviii.  11). 


540  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  torches  athwart  the  moonlit  interspaces  of  the  olive-yards,  were 
enough  to  show  that  Judas  had  betrayed  the  secret  of  His  retirement, 
and  was  even  now  at  hand. 

And  even  as  Jesus  spoke  the  traitor  himself  appeared.'  Overdoing 
his  part — acting  in  the  too-hurried  impetuosity  of  a  crime  so  hideous  that 
he  dared  not  pause  to  think — he  pressed  forward  into  the  inclosure,  and 
was  in  front  of  all  the  rest.""     "  Comrade,"  said  Jesus  to  him  as  he  hurried 

forward,   "  the  crime  for  which  thou  art  come "      The  sentence  seems 

to  have  been  cut  short  by  the  deep  agitation  of  His  spirit,  nor  did  Judas 
return  any  answer,  intent  only  on  giving  to  his  confederates  his  shameful 
preconcerted  signal.  "He  whom  I  kiss,"  he  had  said  to  them,  "the 
same  is  He.  Seize  Him  at  once,  and  lead  Him  away  safely." ^  An-d  so, 
advancing  to  Jesus  with  his  usual  cold  title  of  address,  he  exclaimed, 
"  Rabbi,  Rabbi,  hail ! "  and  profaned  the  sacred  cheek  of  his  Master  with 
a  kiss  of  overacted  salutation. ♦  "Judas,"  said  Jesus  to  him,  with  stern 
and  sad  reproach,  "dost  thou  betray  the  Son  of  Man  with  a  kiss?" 
These  words  were  enough,  for  they  simply  revealed  the  man  to  himself, 
by  stating  his  hideous  act  in  all  its  simplicity  ;  and  the  method  of  his 
treachery  was  so  unparalleled  in  its  heinousness,  so  needless  and  spon- 
taneously wicked,  that  more  words  would  have  been  superfluous.  With 
feelings  that  the  very  devils  might  have  pitied,  the  wretch  slunk  back  to 
the  door  of  the  inclosure,  towards  which  the  rest  of  the  crowd  were  now 
beginning  to  press. 

"  Lord,  shall  we  smite  with  the  sword?"  was  the  eager  question  of 
St.  Peter,  and  the  only  other  disciple  provided  with  a  weapon  ;  for,  being 
within  the  garden,  the  Apostles  were  still  unaware  of  the  number  of  the 
captors.  Jesus  did  not  at  once  answer  the  question  ;  for  no  sooner  had 
He  repelled  the  villainous  falsity  of  Judas  than  He  Himself  stepped  out 
of   the    inclosure    to    face    His    pursuers.      Not   flying,   not  attempting  to 

1  Throughout  the  description  of  these  scenes  I  have  simply  taken  the  four  Gospel  narratives  as  one 
whole,  and  regarded  them  as  supplementing  each  other.  It  will  be  seen  how  easily,  and  without  a  single 
violent  hypothesis,  they  fall  into  one  harmonious,  probable,  and  simple  narrative.  Lange  here  adopts 
what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  best  order  of  sequence.  The  fact  that  Judas  gave  the  signal  too  early  for  his 
own  purpose  seems  to  follow  from  John  xviii.  4 — g,  "  he  went  out."  Alford  thinks  it  "  inconceivable" 
that  Judas  had  given  his  traitor-kiss  before  this  scene  ;  but  his  own  arrangement  will  surely  strike  every 
careful  reader  as  much  more  inconceivable. 

2  Luke  xxii.  47. 

3  Mark  xiv.  44. 

4  The  "closely  kissed  "  of  Matt.  xxvi.  49;  Mark  xiv.  45,  is  clearly  meant  to  imply  a  fervent  kiss. 
Something  of  the  same  kind  seems  to  be  intended  by  the  "  Rabbi  I  Rabbi  !"  of  Mark  xiv.  45.  "  Lord  " 
was  the  ordinary  address  of  the  Apostles  to  Christ;  but  the  colder  and  feebler  "  Rabbi"  seems  to  have 
been  the  title  always  used  by  Judas. 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.         541 

hide  Himself,  He  stood  there  before  them  in  the  full  moonlight  in  His 
unarmed  and  lonely  majesty,  shaming  by  His  calm  presence  their  super- 
fluous torches  and  superfluous  arms. 

"Whom  are  ye  seeking?"  He  asked. 

The  question  was  not  objectless.  It  was  asked,  as  St.  John  points 
out,'  to  secure  His  Apostles  from  all  molestation  ;  and  we  may  suppose 
also  that  it  served  to  make  all  who  were  present  the  witnesses  of  His 
arrest,  and  so  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  secret  assassination  or 
foul   play. 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  they  answered. 

Their  excitement  and  awe  preferred  this  indirect  answer,  though  if 
there  could  have  been  any  doubt  as  to  who  the  speaker  was,  Judas  was 
there — the  eye  of  the  Evangelist  noticed  him,  trying  in  vain  to  lurk  amid 
the  serried  ranks  of  the  crowd — to  prevent  any  possible  mistake  which 
might  have  been  caused  by  the  failure  of  his  premature  and  therefore 
disconcerted  signal. 

"I  am  He."  ^  said  Jesus. 

Those  quiet  words  produced  a  sudden  paroxysm  of  amazement  and 
dread.  That  answer  so  gentle  "  had  in  it  a  strength  greater  than  the 
eastern  wind,  or  the  voice  of  thunder,  for  God  was  in  that  'still  voice,' 
and  it  struck  them  down  to  the  ground."  Instances  are  not  wanting  in 
history  in  which  the  untroubled  brow,  the  mere  glance,  the  calm  bearing 
of  some  defenseless  man,  has  disarmed  and  paralyzed  his  enemies.  The 
savage  and  brutal  Gauls  could  not  lift  their  swords  to  strike  the  majestic 
senators  of  Rome.  "  I  cannot  slay  Marius,"  exclaimed  the  barbarian 
slave,  flinging  down  his  sword  and  flying  headlong  from  the  prison  into 
which  he  had  been  sent  to  murder  the  aged  hero.  Is  there,  then,  any 
ground  for  the  scoffing  skepticism  with  which  many  have  received  St. 
John's  simple  but  striking  narrative,  that,  at  the  words  "  /  am  He"  a 
movement  of  contagious  terror  took  place  among  the  crowd,  and,  starting 
back  in  confusion,  some  of  them  fell  to  the  ground  ?  Nothing  surely  was 
more  natural.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Judas  was  among  them  ;  that 
his  soul  was  undoubtedly  in  a  state  of  terrible  perturbation  ;  that  Orientals 
are   specially  liable  to  sudden  panic  ;    that  fear  is  an    emotion   eminently 

1  John  xviii.  8. 

2  John  xviii.  5.  One  01  those  minute  touches  which  so  clearly  mark  the  eye-witness — which  are  inex- 
plicable on  any  other  supposition,  and  which  abound  in  the  narrative  of  the  beloved  disciple.  To  give  to 
the  "  I  am  He  "  any  mystic  significance  (Isa.  xliii.  10,  LXX. ;  John  viii.  28),  as  is  done  by  Lange  and  others, 
Eeems  unreasonable. 


542  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

sympathetic  ;  that  most  of  them  must  have  heard  of  the  mighty  miracles  of 
Jesus,  and  that  all  were  at  any  rate  aware  that  He  claimed  to  be  a 
Prophet;  that  the  manner  in  which  He  met  this  great  multitude,  which- 
the  alarms  of  Judas  had  dictated  as  essential  to  His  capture,  suggested 
the  likelihood  of  some  appeal  to  supernatural  powers  ;  that  they  were 
engaged  in  one  of  those  deeds  of  guilty  violence  and  midnight  darkness 
which  paralyze  the  stoutest  minds.  When  we  bear  this  in  mind,  and 
when  we  remember  too  that  on  many  occasions  in  His  history  the  mere 
presence  and  word  of  Christ  had  sufficed  to  quell  the  fury  of  the  multi- 
tude, and  to  keep  Him  safe  in  the  midst  of  them,"  it  hardly  needs  any 
recourse  to  miracle  to  account  for  the  fact  that  these  ofificial  marauders 
and  their  infamous  guide  recoiled  from  those  simple  words,  "  I  am  He," 
as  though  the  lightning  had  suddenly  been  flashed  into  their  faces. 

While  they  stood  cowering  and  struggling  there,  He  again  asked 
them,  "Whom  are  ye  seeking?"  Again  they  replied,  "Jesus  of  Nazareth." 
"I  told  you,"  He  answered,  "that  I  am  He.  If,  then,  ye  are  seeking 
me,  let  these  go  away."  For  He  Himself  had  said  in  His  prayer,  "Of 
those  whom  Thou  hast  given  me  have  I  lost  none." 

The  words  were  a  signal  to  the  Apostles  that  they  could  no  longer 
render  Him  any  service,  and  that  they  might  now  consult  their  own 
safety  if  they  would.  But  when  they  saw  that  He  meant  to  offer  no 
resistance,  that  He  was  indeed  about  to  surrender  Himself  to  His 
enemies,  some  pulse  of  nobleness  or  of  shame  throbbed  in  the  impetuous 
soul  of  Peter ;  and  hopeless  and  useless  as  all  resistance  had  now  become, 
he  yet  drew  his  sword,  and  with  a  feeble  and  ill-aimed  blow  severed  the 
ear  of  a  man  named  Malchus,  a  servant  of  the  High  Priest.  Instantly 
Jesus  stopped  the  ill-timed  and  dangerous  struggle.  "  Return  that  sword 
of  thine  into  its  place,"  He  said  to  Peter,  "for  all  they  that  take  the 
sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword;"  and  then  He  reproachfully  asked 
His  rash  disciple  whether  he  really  supposed  that  He  could  not  escape  if 
He  would?  whether  the  mere  breathing  of  a  prayer  would  not  secure  for 
Him — had  He  not  voluntarily  intended  to  fulfill  the  Scriptures  by  drink-; 
ing  the  cup  which  His  Father  had  given  Him — the  aid,  not  of  twelve  ^ 
timid  Apostles,  but  of  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels?"'     And  then, 

1  Luke  iv.  39  ;  John  vii.  30  ;  viii.  59  ;  x.  39  ;  Mark  xi.  18. 

2  A  legion  during  the  Empire  consisted  of  about  6,000  men.  The  fact  that  St.  John  alone  mentions 
the  names  of  St.  Peter  and  Malchus  may  arise  simply  from  his  having  been  more  accurately  acquainted 
than  the  other  Evangelists  with  the  events  of  that  heart-shaking  scene  ;  but  there  is  nothing  absurd  or 
improbable  in  the  current  supposition,  that  the  name  of  Peter  may  have  been  purposely  kept  in  the  back- 
ground in  the  earliest  cycle  of  Christian  records. 


GETHSEMANE— THE  AGONY  AND  THE  ARREST.        543 

turning  to  the  soldiers  who  were  holding  Him,  He  said,  "Suffer  ye  thus 
far,"'  and  in  one  last  act  of  miraculous  mercy  touched  and  healed  the 
wound. 

In  the  confusion  of  the  night  this  whole  incident  seems  to  have 
passed  unnoticed  except  by  a  very  few.  At  any  rate,  it  made  no  im- 
pression upon  these  hardened  men.  Their  terror  had  quite  vanished,  and 
had  been  replaced  by  insolent  confidence.  The  Great  Prophet  had  vol- 
untarily resigned  Himself ;  He  was  their  helpless  captive.  No  thunder 
had  rolled;  no  angel  flashed  down  from  heaven  for  His  deliverance;  no 
miraculous  fire  devoured  amongst  them.  They  saw  before  them  nothing 
but  a  weary  unarmed  man,  whom  one  of  His  own  most  intimate  follow- 
ers had  betrayed,  and  whose  arrest  was  simply  watched  in  helpless  agony 
by  a  few  terrified  Galileans.  They  had  fast  hold  of  Him,  and  already 
some  chief  priests,  and  elders,  and  leading  officers  of  the  Temple-guard 
had  ventured  to  come  out  of  the  dark  background  from  which  they 
had  securely  seen  His  capture,  and  to  throng  about  Him  in  insulting 
curiosity.  To  these  especially^  He  turned,  and  said  to  them,  "Have  ye 
come  out  as  against  a  robber  with  swords  and  staves  ?  When  I  was 
daily  with  you  in  the  Temple  ye  did  not  stretch  out  your  hands  against 
me.  But  this  is  your  hour,  and  the  power  of  darkness."  Those  fatal 
words  quenched  the  last  gleam  of  hope  in  the  minds  of  His  followers. 
"Then  His  disciples,  all  of  them  "  ^ — even  the  fiery  Peter,  even  the  loving 
John — "forsook  Him,  and  fled."  At  that  supreme  moment  only  one  un- 
known youth — perhaps  the  owner  of  Gethsemane,  perhaps  St.  Mark  the 
Evangelist,  perhaps  Lazarus  the  brother  of  Martha  and  Mary — ventured, 
in  his  intense  excitement,  to  hover  on  the  outskirts  of  the  hostile  crowd. 
He  had  apparently  been  roused  from  sleep,  for  he  had  nothing  to  cover 
him  except  the  sitidon,  or  linen  sheet,  in  which  he  had  been  sleeping. 
But  the  Jewish  emissaries,  either  out  of  the  mere  wantonness  of  a  crowd 

1  This  may  either  mean,  "  Let  me  free  for  one  moment  only,  while   I  heal  this  wounded  man,"  as 
Alford  not  improbably  understands  it ;  or,  •'  Excuse  this  single  act  of  resistance." 

2  Luke  xxii.  52. 

3  Matt.  xxvi.  56.     Many  readers  will  thank  me  here  for  quoting  the  fine  lines  from  Browning's  Death 
in  the  Desert : — 

"  Forsake  the  Christ  thou  sawest  transfigured.  Him 
Who  trod  the  sea  and  brought  the  dead  to  life. 
What  should  wring  this  from  thee  ?    Ye  laugh  and  ask 
What  wrung  it?     Even  a  torchlight  and  a  noise, 
The  sudden  Roman  faces,  violent  hands. 
And  fear  of  what  the  Jews  might  do  !    Just  that, 
And  it  is  written,  '  I  forsook  and  fled.' 
There  was  my  trial,  and  it  ended  thus." 


544  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

at  seeing  a  person  in  an  unwonted  guise,  or  because  they  resented  his 
too  close  intrusion,  seized  hold  of  the  sheet  which  he  had  wrapped  about 
him ;  whereupon  he  too  was  suddenly  terrified,  and  fled  away  naked, 
leaving  the  linen  garment  in  their  hands. 

Jesus  was  now  absolutely  alone  in  the  power  of  His  enemies.  At 
the  command  of  the  tribune  His  hands  were  tied  behind  His  back,"  and 
forming  a  close  array  around  Him,  the  Roman  soldiers,  followed  and 
surrounded  by  the  Jewish  servants,  led  Him  once  more  through  the 
night,  over  the  Kidron,  and  up  the  steep  city  slope  beyond  it,  to  the 
palace  of  the  High  Priest. 

I  John  xviii.  12. 


CHAPTER    LVIII. 


JESUS    BEFORE    THE    PRIESTS   AND    THE    SANHEDRIN. 


Be     '  )w  in  judgment." — Pirke  Abl:Sth,   i.   i. 


C/C— - ^^ 


'     '^Ti<k%Kt:^ 


^li-^I^JL^ 


LT HOUGH  skeptics  have  dwelt  with  dispropor- 
tioned  persistency  upon  a  multitude  of  "  dis- 
crepancies "  in  the  fourfold  narrative  of  Christ's 
trial,  condemnation,  death,  and  resurrection,  yet 
these  are  not  of  a  nature  to  cause  the  slightest 
anxiety  to  a  Christian  scholar ;  nor  need  they 
a\raken  the  most  momentary  distrust  in  any  one 
who — even  if  he  have  no  deeper  feelings  in  the 
matter — approaches  the  Gospels  with  no  precon- 
ceived theory,  whether  of  infallibility  or  of  dis- 
honesty, to  support,  and  merely  accepts  them  for 
that  which,  at  the  lowest,  they  claim  to  be — 
histories  honest  and  faithful  up  to  the  full: 
knowledge  of  the  writers,  but  each,  if  taken 
alone,  confessedly  fragmentary*  and  obviously  incomplete.  After  repeated 
study,  I  declare,  quite  fearlessly,  that  though  the  slight  variations  are 
numerous — though  the  lesser  particulars  cannot  in  every  instance  be 
rigidly  and  minutely  accurate — though  no  one  of  the  narratives  taken 
singly  would  give  us  an  adequate  impression— yet,  so  far  from  there 
being,  in  this  part  of  the  Gospel  story,  any  irreconcilable  contradiction, 
it  is  perfectly  possible  to  discover  how  one  Evangelist  supplements  the 
details  furnished  by  another,  and  perfectly  possible  to  understand  the 
true  sequence  of  the  incidents  by  combining  into  one  whole  the  separate 
indications  which  they  furnish.  It  is  easy  to  call  such  combinations 
arbitrary  and  baseless  ;  but  they  are  only  arbitrary  in  so  far  as  we  can- 
not always  be  absolutely  certain  that  the  succession  of  facts  was  exactly 
such  as  we  suppose  ;  and  so  far  are  they  from  being  baseless,  that,  to 
the  careful  reader  of  the  Gospels,  they  carry  with  them  a  conviction 
little  short  of  certainty.     If  we  treat  the  Gospels  as  we  should  treat  any 


546  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

other  authentic  documents  recording  all  that  the  authors  knew,  or  all 
that  they  felt  themselves  commissioned  to  record,  of  the  crowded  inci- 
dents in  one  terrible  and  tumultuous  day  and  night,  we  shall,  with  care 
and  study,  see  how  all  that  they  tell  us  falls  accurately  into  its  proper 
position  in  the  general  narrative,  and  shows  us  a  sixfold  trial,  a  quad- 
ruple derision,  a  triple  acquittal,  a  twice-repeated  cojidemnation  of  Christ 
our  Lord. 

Reading  the  Gospels  side  by  side,  we  soon  perceive  that  of  the  three 
successive  trials  which  our  Lord  underwent  at  the  hands  of  the  Jews,  the 
first  only — that  before  Annas — is  related  to  us  by  St.  John  ;  the  second 
— that  before  Caiaphas — by  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  ;  the  third — that 
before  the  Sanhedrin — by  St.  Luke  alone.  Nor  is  there  anything  strange 
in  this,  since  the  first  was  the  practical,  the  second  the  potential,  the 
third  the  actual  and  formal  decision,  that  sentence  of  death  should  be 
passed  judicially  upon  Him.  Each  of  the  three  trials  might,  from  a 
different  point  of  view,  have  been  regarded  as  the  most  fatal  and  im- 
portant of  the  three.  That  of  Annas  was  the  authoritative  praejudichim, 
that  of  Caiaphas  the  real  determination,  that  of  the  entire  Sanhedrin  at 
daybreak  the  final  ratification.' 

When  the  tribune,  who  commanded  the  detachment  of  Roman 
soldiers,  had  ordered  Jesus  to  be  bound,  they  led  Him  away  without  an 
attempt  at  opposition.  Midnight  was  already  past  as  they  hurried  Him, 
from  the  moonlit  shadows  of  green  Gethsemane,  through  the  hushed 
streets  of  the  sleeping  city,  to  the  palace  of  the  High  Priest.  It  seems 
to  have  been  jointly  occupied  by  the  prime  movers  in  this  black  iniquity, 
Annas  and  his  son-in-law,  Joseph  Caiaphas.  They  led  Him  to  Annas 
first.  It  is  true  that  this  Hanan,  son  of  Seth,  the  Ananus  of  Josephus, 
dnd  the  Annas  of  the  Evangelists,  had  only  been  the  actual  High  Priest 
for  seven  years  (A.  D.  7 — 14),  and  that,  more  than  twenty  years  before 
this  period,  he  had  been  deposed  by  the  Procurator  Valerius  Gratus.  He 
had  been  succeeded  first  by  Ismael  Ben  Phabi,  then  by  his  son  Eleazar, 
then  by  his  son-in-law  Joseph  Caiaphas.  But  the  priestly  families  would 
not  be  likely  to  attach  more  importance  than  they  chose  to  a  deposition 
which  a  strict  observer  of  the  Law  would  have  regarded  as  invalid  and 
sacrilegious  ;  nor  would  so  astute  people  as  the  Jews  be  likely  to  lack 
devices  which  would  enable  them  to  evade  the  Roman  fiat,  and   to  treat 

I  One  might,  perhaps,  from  a  slightly  different  point  of  view,  regard  the  questioning  before  Annas  as 
mere  conspiracy  ;  that  before  Caiaphas  as  a  sort  of  preliminary  questioning  ;  and  that  before  the  Sanhedrin 
as  the  only  real  and  legal  trial. 


JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AXD  THE  SANHEDRIN.  547 

Annas,  if  they  wished  to  do  so,  as  their  High  Priest  de  jure,  if  not  de 
facto.  Since  the  days  of  Herod  the  Great,  the  High  Priesthood  had 
been  degraded  from  a  permanent  religious  office,  to  a  temporary  secular 
distinction  ;  and,  even  had  it  been  otherwise,  the  rude  legionaries  Avould 
probably  care  less  than  nothing  to  whom  they  led  their  victim.  If  the 
tribune  condescended  to  ask  a  question  about  it,  it  would  be  easy  for  the 
Captain  of  the  Temple — who  may  very  probably  have  been  at  this  time, 
as  we  know  was  the  case  subsequently,  one  of  the  sons  of  Annas  him- 
self— to  represent  Annas  as  the  Sagan  or  Nasi — the  "  Deputy,"  or  the 
President  of  the  Sanhedrin — and  so  as  the  proper  person  to  conduct  the 
preliminary  investigation. 

i.  Accordingly,  it  was  before  Hanan  that  Jesus  stood  first  as  a 
prisoner  at  the  tribunal."  It  is  probable  that  he  and  his  family  had  been 
originally  summoned  by  Herod  the  Great  from  Alexandria,  as  supple 
supporters  of  a  distasteful  tyranny.  The  Jewish  historian  calls  this  Hanan 
the  happiest  man  of  his  time,  because  he  died  at  an  advanced  old  age, 
and  because  both  he  and  five  of  his  sons  in  succession — not  to  mention 
his  son-in-law — had  enjoyed  the  shadow  of  the  High  Priesthood;  so  that, 
in  fact,  for  nearly  half  a  century  he  had  practically  wielded  the  sacerdotal 
power.  But  to  be  admired  by  such  a  renegade  as  Josephus  is  a 
questionable  advantage.  In  spite  of  his  prosperity  he  seems  to  have  left 
behind  him  but  an  evil  name,  and  we  know  enough  of  his  character, 
even  from  the  most  unsuspected  sources,  to  recognize  in  him  nothing 
better  than  an  astute,  tyrannous,  worldly  Sadducee,  unvenerable  for  all 
his  seventy  years,  full  of  a  serpentine  malice  and  meanness  which  utterly 
belied  the  meaning  of  his  name,"  and  engaged  at  this  very  moment  in  a 
dark,  disorderly  conspiracy,  for  which  even  a  worse  man  would  have  had 
cause  to  blush.  It  was  before  this  alien  and  intriguing  hierarch  that 
there  began,  at  midnight,  the  first  stage  of    that  long  and    terrible  trial.^ 

And  there  was  good  reason  why  St.  John  should  have  preserved  for 
us  this  phase  of  the  trial,  and  preserved  it  apparently  for  the  express 
reason  that  it  had  been  omitted  by  the  other  Evangelists.  It  is  not  till 
after  a  lapse  of  years  that  people  can  always  see  clearly  the  prime  mover 
in  events  with  which  they  have  been  contemporary.  At  the  time,  the 
ostensible  agent  is  the  one  usually  regarded  as  most  responsible,  though 

1  John  xviii.  13,  19 — 24. 

2  "  Clement,"  or  "  mercifuL" 

3  John  xviii.  19 — 24. 


548  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

he  may  be  in  reality  a  mere  link  in  the  ofificial  machinery.  But  if  there 
were  one  man  who  was  more  guilty  than  any  other  of  the  death  of  Jesus, 
that  man  was  Hanan.  His  advanced  age,  his  preponderant  dignity,  his 
worldly  position  and  influence,  as  one  who  stood  on  the  best  terms  with 
the  Herods  and  the  Procurators,  gave  an  exceptional  weight  to  his  pre- 
rogative decision.  The  mere  fact  that  he  should  have  noticed  Jesus  at 
all  showed  that  he  attached  to  His  teaching  a  political  significance — 
showed  that  he  was  at  last  afraid  lest  Jesus  should  alienate  the  people 
yet  more  entirely  from  the  pontifical  clique  than  had  ever  been  done  by 
Shemaia  or  Abtalion.  It  is  most  remarkable,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
scarcely  ever  been  noticed,  that,  although  the  Pharisees  undoubtedly  were 
actuated  by  a  burning  hatred  against  Jesus,  and  were  even  so  eager  for 
His  death  as  to  be  v/illing  to  co-operate  with  the  aristocratic  and  priestly 
Sadducees — from  whom  they  were  ordinarily  separated  by  every  kind  of 
difference,  political,  social,  and  religious — yet,  from  the  moment  that  the 
plot  for  His  arrest  and  condemnation  had  been  matured,  the  Pharisees 
took  so  little  part  in  it  that  their  name  is  not  once  directly  mentioned 
in  any  event  connected  wiih  the  arrest,  the  trial,  the  derisions,  and  the 
crucifixion.  The  Pharisees,  as  such,  disappear;  the  chief  priests  and 
elders  take  their  place.  It  is,  indeed,  doubtful  whether  any  of  the  more 
distinguished  Pharisees  were  members  of  the  degraded  simulacrtim  of 
authority  which  in  those  bad  days  still  arrogated  to  itself  the  title  of  a 
Sanhedrin.  If  we  may  believe  not  a  few  of  the  indications  of  the  Talmud, 
that  Sanhedrin  Avas  little  better  than  a  close,  irreligious,  unpatriotic  con- 
federacy of  monopolizing  and  time-serving  priests — the  Boethusim,  the 
Kamhits,  the  Phabis,  the  family  of  Hanan,  mostly  of  non-Palestinian 
origin — who  were  supported  by  the  government,  but  detested  by  the 
people,  and  of  whom  this  bad  conspirator  was  the  very  life  and  soul. 

And,  perhaps,  we  may  see  a  further  reason  for  the  apparent  with- 
drawal of  the  Pharisees  from  all  active  co-operation  in  the  steps  which 
accompanied  the  condemnation  and  execution  of  Jesus,  not  only  in  the 
superior  mildness  which  is  attributed  to  them,  and  in  their  comparative 
insignificance  in  the  civil  administration,  but  also  in  their  total  want  of 
sympathy  with  those  into  whose  too  fatal  toils  they  had  delivered  the 
Son  of  God.  There  seems,  indeed,  to  be  a  hitherto  unnoticed  circum- 
stance which,  while  it  would  kindle  to  the  highest  degree  the  fury  of  the 
Sadducees,  would  rather  enlist  in  Christ's  favor  the  sympathy  of  their 
rivals.      What    had  roused  the    disdainful    insouciance  of    these    powerful 


JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AND  THE  SANHEDRIN.  549 

aristocrats  ?  Morally  insignificant — the  patrons  and  adherents  of  opinions 
which  had  so  little  hold  upon  the  people  that  Jesus  had  never  directed 
against  them  one  tithe  of  the  stern  denunciation  which  He  had  leveled 
at  the  Pharisees — they  had  played  but  a  very  minor  part  in  the  opposi- 
tion which  had  sprung  up  round  the  Messiah's  steps.  Nay,  further  than 
this,  they  would  be  wholly  at  one  with  Him  in  rejecting  and  discountenanc- 
ing the  minute  and  casuistical  frivolities  of  the  Oral  Law ;  they  might  even 
have  rejoiced  that  they  had  in  Him  a  holy  and  irresistible  ally  in  their  oppo- 
sition to  all  the  Hagcidotli  and  HalacJwth  which  had  germinated  in  a  funo-ous 
growth  over  the  whole  body  of  the  Mosaic  institutions.  Whence,  then,  this 
sudden  outburst  of  the  very  deadliest  and  most  ruthless  opposition?  It  is 
a  conjecture  that  has  not  yet  been  made,  but  which  the  notices  of  the  Tal- 
mud bring  home  to  my  mind  with  strong  conviction,  that  the  rage  of  these 
priests  was  mainly  due  to  our  Lord's  words  and  acts  concerning  that 
House  of  God  which  they  regarded  as  their  exclusive  domain,  and,  above 
all,  to  His  second  public  cleansing  of  the  Temple.  They  could  not 
indeed  press  this  point  in  their  accusations,  because  the  act  was  one  of 
which,  secretly  at  least,  the  Pharisees,  in  all  probability,  heartily  approved ; 
and  had  they  urged  it  against  Him  they  would  have  lost  all  chance  of 
impressing  upon  Pilate  a  sense  of  their  unanimity.  The  first  cleansing 
might  have  been  passed  over  as  an  isolated  act  of  zeal,  to  which  little 
importance  need  be  attached,  while  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  mainly 
confined  to  despised  and  far-off  Galilee  ;  but  the  second  had  been  more 
public,  and  more  vehement,  and  had  apparently  kindled  a  more  general 
indignation  against  the  gross  abuse  which  called  it  forth.  Accordingly, 
in  all  three  Evangelists  we  find  that  those  who  complained  of  the  act 
are  not  distinctively  Pharisees,  but  "  Chief  Priests  and  Scribes  "  (Matt. 
xxi.  15;  Mark  xi.  18  ;  Luke  xix.  47),  who  seem  at  once  to  have  derived 
from  it  a  fresh  stimulus  to  seek  His  destruction. 

But,  again,  it  may  be  asked,  Is  there  any  reason  beyond  this  bold 
infraction  of  their  authority,  this  indignant  repudiation  of  an  arrangement 
which  they  had  sanctioned,  which  would  have  stirred  up  the  rage  of  these 
priestly  families?  Yes — for  we  may  assume  from  the  Talmud  that  it 
tended  to  wound  their  avarice,  to  interfere  zvith  their  illicit  and  greedy 
gains.  Avarice — the  besetting  sin  of  Judas — the  besetting  sin  of  the 
Jewish  race — seems  also  to  have  been  the  besetting  sin  of  the  family  of 
Hanan.  It  was  they  who  had  founded  the  chantijoth — the  famous  four 
shops  under  the  twin  cedars  of  Olivet — in  which  were  sold  things  legally 


550  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

pure,  and  which  they  had  manipulated  with  such  commercial  cunning  as 
artificially  to  raise  the  price  of  doves  to  a  gold  coin  apiece,  until  the  people 
were  delivered  from  this  gross  imposition  by  the  indignant  interference 
of  a  grandson  of  Hillel.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  shops 
■which  had  intruded  even  under  the  Temple  porticoes  were  not  only 
sanctioned  by  their  authority,  but  even  managed  for  their  profit.  To 
interfere  with  these  was  to  rob  them  of  one  important  source  of  that 
wealth  and  worldly  comfort  to  which  they  attached  such  extravagant 
importance.  There  was  good  reason  why  Hanan,  the  head  representative 
of  "the  viper  brood,"  as  a  Talmudic  writer  calls  them,  should  strain  to 
the  utmost  his  cruel  prerogative  of  power  to  crush  a  Prophet  whose 
actions  tended  to  make  him  and  his  powerful  family  at  once  wholly  con- 
temptible and  comparatively  poor. 

Such  then  were  the  feelings  of  bitter  contempt  and  hatred  with 
which  the  ex-High  Priest  assumed  the  initiative  in  interrogating  Jesus. 
The  fact  that  he  dared  not  avow  them — nay,  was  forced  to  keep  them 
wholly  out  of  sight — would  only  add  to  the  intensity  of  his  bitterness. 
Even  his  method  of  procedure  seems  to  have  been  as  wholly  illegal  as 
was  his  assumption,  in  such  a  place  and  at  such  an  hour,  of  any  legal 
function  whatever.  Anxious,  at  all  hazards,  to  trump  up  some  available 
charge  of  secret  sedition,  or  of  unorthodox  teaching,  he  questioned  Jesus 
of  His  disciples  and  of  His  doctrine.  The  answer,  for  all  its  calmness, 
involved  a  deep  reproof,  "/have  spoken  openly  to  the  world;  /ever 
taught  in  the  synagogue  and  in  the  Temple,  where  all  the  Jews  come 
together,  and  in  secret  I  said  nothing.  Why  askest  thou  me?  Ask 
those  who  have  heard  _me  what  I  said  to  them.  Lo  !  these  " — pointing, 
perhaps,  to  the  bystanders — "know  what  /  said  to  them."  The  emphatic 
repetition  of  the  "  I,"  and  its  unusually  significant  position  at  the  end  of 
the  sentence,  show  that  a  contrast  was  intended;  as  though  He  had  said, 
"This  midnight,  this  sedition,  this  secrecy,  this  indecent  mockery  of 
justice,  are  yours,  not  7nhie.  There  has  never  been  anything  esoteric  in 
my  doctrine  ;  never  anything  to  conceal  in  my  actions  ;  no  hole-and-corner 
plots  among  my  followers.  But  thou?  and  thine?"  Even  the  minions 
of  Annas  felt  the  false  position  of  their  master  under  this  calm  rebuke; 
they  felt  that  before  the  transparent  innocence  of  this  youthful  Rabbi  of 
Nazareth  the  hoary  hypocrisy  of  the  crafty  Sadducee  was  abashed. 
"  Answerest  thou  the  High  Priest  so?"  said  one  of  them  with  a  burst  of 
illegal  insolence  ;  and  then,  unreproved  by  this  priestly  violator  of  justice, 


JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AND  THE  SANHEDRIN.  551 

he  profaned  with  the  first  infamous  blow  the  sacred  face  of  Christ.  Then 
first  that  face  which,  as  the  poet-preacher  says,  "  the  angels  stare  upon 
with  wonder  as  infants  at  a  bright  sunbeam,"  was  smitten  by  a  con- 
temptible slave.  The  insult  was  borne  with  noble  meekness.  Even  St. 
Paul,  when  similarly  insulted,  flaming  into  sudden  anger  at  such  a  grossly 
illegal  violence,  had  scathed  the  ruffian  and  his  abettor  with  "God  shall 
smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall:"  but  He,  the  Son  of  God — He  who  was 
infinitely  above  all  apostles  and  all  angels — with  no  flash  of  anger,  with 
no  heightened  tone  of  natural  indignation,  quietly  reproved  the  impudent 
transgressor  with  the  words,  "  If  I  spoke  evil,  bear  witness  concerning 
the  evil;  but  if  well,  why  smitest  thou  me?"  It  was  clear  that  nothing 
more  could  be  extorted  from  Him  ;  that  before  such  a  tribunal  He  would 
brook  no  further  question.  Bound,  in  sign  that  He  was  to  be  con- 
demned— though  unhejird  and  unsentenced — Annas  sent  Him  across 
the  court-yard  to  Joseph  Caiaphas,  his  son-in-law,  who,  not  by  the  grace 
of  God.  but  by  the  grace  of  the  Roman  Procurator,  was  the  titular 
High  Priest. 

ii.  Caiaphas,  like  his  father-in-law,  was  a  Sadducee — equally  astute 
and  unscrupulous  with  Annas,  but  endowed  with  less  force  of  character 
and  will.  In  his  house  took  place  the  second  private  and  irregular  stage 
of  the  trial."  There — for  though  the  poor  Apostles  could  not  watch  for 
one  hour  in  sympathetic  prayer,  these  nefarious  plotters  could  watch  all 
night  in  their  deadly  malice — a  few  of  the  most  desperate  enemies  of 
Jesus  among  the  Priests  and  Sadducees  were  met.  To  form  a  session  of 
the  Sanhedrin  there  must  at  least  have  been  twenty-three  members 
present.  And  we  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  conjecture  that  this  partic- 
ular body  before  which  Christ  was  now  convened  was  mainly  composed 
of  Priests.  There  were  in  fact  three  Sanhedrins,  or  as  we  should  rather 
call  them,  committees  of  the  Sanhedrin,  which  ordinarily  met  at  different 
places — in  the  Lishcat  Haggazzith,  or  Paved  Hall  ;  in  the  Beth  Midrash, 
or  Chamber  by  the  Partition  of  the  Temple  ;  and  near  the  Gate  of  the 
Temple  Mount.  Such  being  the  case,  it  is  no  unreasonable  supposition 
that  these  committees  were  composed  of  different  elements,  and  that  one 
of  them  may  have  been  mainly  sacerdotal  in  its  constitution.  If  so,  it 
would  have  been  the  most  likely  of  them  all,  at  the  present  crisis,  to 
embrace  the  most  violent  measures  against  One  whose  teaching  now 
seemed  to  endanger  the  very  existence  of  priestly  rule. 

I  Matt.  xxvi.  59 — 6S  ,  Mark  xiv.  55^65.     Irregular,  for  capital  trials  could  only  take  place  by  daylight. 


552  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  nature  of  the  tribunal  over  which 
Caiaphas  was  now  presiding,  it  is  clear  that  the  Priests  were  forced  to 
change  their  tactics.  Instead  of  trying,  as  Hanan  had  done,  to  overawe 
and  entangle  Jesus  with  insidious  questions,  and  so  to  involve  Him  in  a 
charge  of  secret  apostacy,  they  now  tried  to  brand  Him  with  the  crime 
of  public  error. 

In  point  of  fact  their  own  bitter  divisions  and  controversies 
made  the  task  of  convicting  Him  a  very  difficult  one.  If  they  dwelt 
on  any  supposed  opposition  to  civil  authority,  that  would  rather 
enlist  the  sympathies  of  the  Pharisees  in  His  favor;  if  they  dwelt  on 
supposed  Sabbath  violations  or  the  neglect  of  traditional  observances, 
that  would  accord  with  the  views  of  the  Sadducees.  The  Sadducees 
dared  not  complain  of  His  cleansing  of  the  Temple  :  the  Pharisees,  or 
those  who  represented  them,  found  it  useless  to  advert  to  His  denuncia- 
tions of  tradition. 

But  Jesus,  infinitely  nobler  than  His  own  noblest  Apostle,  v?ould 
not  foment  these  latent  animosities,  or  evoke  for  His  own  deliv- 
erance a  contest  of  these  slumbering  prejudices.  He  did  not  disturb 
the  temporary  compromise  which  united  them  in  a  common  hatred 
against  Himself.  Since,  therefore,  they  had  nothing  else  to  go  upon,  the 
Chief  Priests  and  the  entire  Sanhedrin  "  sought  false  witness " — such  is 
the  terribly  simple  expression  of  the  Evangelists — '' sojight  false  witness 
against  Jesus  to  put  Him  to  death."  Many  men,  with  a  greedy,  un- 
natural depravity,  seek  false  witness — mostly  of  the  petty,  ignoble,  malig- 
nant sort  ;  and  the  powers  of  evil  usually  supply  it  to  them.  The  Talmud 
seems  to  insinuate  that  the  custom,  which  they  pretend  was  the  general 
one,  had  been  followed  in  the  case  of  Christ,  and  that  two  witnesses  had 
been  placed  in  concealment  while  a  treacherous  disciple— ostensibly  Judas 
Iscariot — had  obtained  from  His  own  lips  an  avowal  of  His  claims.  This, 
however,  is  no  less  false  than  the  utterly  absurd  and  unchronological 
assertion  of  the  tract  Sanhedrin,  that  Jesus  had  been  excommunicated  by 
Joshua  Ben  Perachiah,  and  that  though  for  forty  days  a  herald  had  pro- 
claimed that  He  had  brought  magic  from  Egypt  and  seduced  the  people, 
no  single  witness  came  forward  in  His  favor.  Setting  aside  these  absurd 
inventions,  we  learn  from  the  Gospels  that  though  the  agents  of  these 
priests  were  eager  to  lie,  yet  their  testimony  was  so  false,  so  shadowy,  so 
self-contradictory,  that  it  all  melted  to  nothing,  and  even  those  unjust  and 
bitter  judges  could  not  with  any  decency  accept  it.     But  at  last  two  came 


JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AND  THE  SANHEDRIM.  553 

forward,  whose  false  witness  looked  more  promising."  They  had  heard 
Him  say  something  about  destroying  the  Temple,  and  rebuilding  it  in 
three  days.  According  to  one  version  His  expression  had  been,  "  I  can 
destroy  this  Temple;"  according  to  another,  "  I  will  destroy  t\\\sTeva^\&." 
The  fact  was  that  He  had  said  neither,  but  "Destroy  this  Temple;"  and 
the  imperative  had  but  been  addressed,  hypothetically,  to  them.  They 
were  to  be  the  destroyers  ;  He  had  but  promised  to  rebuild.  It  was  just 
one  of  those  perjuries  which  was  all  the  more  perjured,  because  it  bore 
some  distant  semblance  to  the  truth  ;  and  by  just  giving  a  different 
nua-ficc  to  His  actual  words  they  had,  with  the  ingenuity  of  slander,  re- 
versed their  meaning,  and  hoped  to  found  upon  them  a  charge  of  con- 
.structive  blasphemy.  But  even  this  semblable  perjury  utterly  broke 
down,  and  Jesus  listened  in  silence  while  His  disunited  enemies  hopelessly 
confuted  each  other's  testimony.  Guilt  often  breaks  into  excuses  where 
perfect  innocence  is  dumb.  He  simply  suffered  His  false  accusers  and 
their  false  listeners  to  entangle  themselves  in  the  hideous  coil  of  their 
own  malignant  lies,  and  the  silence  of  the  innocent  Jesus  atoned  for  the 
excuses  of  the  guilty  Adam. 

But  that  majestic  silence  troubled,  thwarted,  confounded,  maddened 
them.  It  weighed  them  down  for  the  moment  with  an  incubus  of  intoler- 
able self-condemnation.  They  felt,  before  that  silence,  as  if  they  were 
the  culprits.  He  the  judge.  And  as  every  poisoned  arrow  of  their  care- 
fully-provided perjuries  fell  harmless  at  His  feet,  as  though  blunted  on 
the  diamond  shield  of  His  white  innocence,  they  began  to  fear  lest,  after 
all,  their  thirst  for  His  blood  would  go  unslaked,  and  their  whole  plot 
fail.  Were  they  thus  to  be  conquered  by  the  feebleness  of  their  own 
weapons,  without  His  stirring  a  finger,  or  uttering  a  word?  Was  this 
Prophet  of  Nazareth  to  prevail  against  thetn,  merely  for  lack  of  a  few 
consistent  lies?  Was  His  life  charmed  even  against  calumny  confirmed 
by  oaths  ?     It  was  intolerable. 

Then  Caiaphas  was  overcome  with  a  paroxysm  of  fear  and  anger. 
Starting  up  from  his  judgment-seat,  and  striding  into  the  midst  ° — with 
what  a  voice,  with  what  an  attitude  we  may  well  imagine  ! — "  Answerest 

1  The  brevity  of  the  Evangelists  prevents  us  from  knowing  whether  the  ordinary  Jewish  rules  of  evi- 
dence  were  observed. 

2  Mark  xiv.  60.  The  Sanhedrin  sat  on  opposite  divans  of  a  circular  hall  ;  the  Nasi,  or  President,  who 
was  usually  the  High  Priest,  sat  in  the  middle  at  the  farther  end,  with  the  Ab  Beth  Din,  or  Father  of  the 
House  of  Judgment,  on  his  right,  and  the  Chakam,  or  Wise  Man,  on  his  left.  The  accused  was  placed 
opposite  to  him. 


554  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Thou  NOTHING?"  he  exclaimed.  "What  is  it  that  these  witness  against 
Thee?"  Had  not  Jesus  been  aware  that  these  His  judges  were  willfully 
feeding  on  ashes  and  seeking  lies,  He  might  have  answered ;  but  now 
His  awful  silence  remained  unbroken. 

Then,  reduced  to  utter  despair  and  fury,  this  false  High  Priest — 
with  marvelous  inconsistency,  with  disgraceful  illegality — still  standing  as 
it  were  with  a  threatening  attitude  over  his  prisoner,  exclaimed,  "  I  adjure 
Thee  by  the  living  God  to  tell  us  " — what  ?  whether  Thou  art  a  male- 
factor ?  whether  Thou  liast  secretly  taught  sedition  ?  whether  Thou  hast 
openly  uttered  blasphemy  ? — no,  but  (and  surely  the  question  showed  the 
dread  misgiving  which  lay  under  all  their  deadly  conspiracy  against  Him) 
—"WHETHER  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God?" 

Strange  question  to  a  bound,  defenseless,  condemned  criminal,  and 
strange  question  from  such  a  questioner — a  High  Priest  of  His  people! 
Strange  question  from  the  judge  who  was  hounding  on  his  false  witnesses 
against  the  prisoner!  Yet  so  adjured,  and  to  such  a  question,  Jesus  could 
not  be  silent;  on  such  a  point  He  could  not  leave  Himself  open  to  mis- 
interpretation. In  the  days  of  His  happier  ministry,  when  they  would 
have  taken  Him  by  force  to  make  Him  a  King — in  the  days  when  to 
claim  the  Messiahship  in  their  sense  would  have  been  to  meet  all  their 
passionate  prejudices'  half  way,  and  to  place  Himself  upon  the  topmost 
pinnacle  of  their  adoring  homage — in  tJiose  days  He  had  kept  His  title  of 
Messiah  utterly  in  the  background :  but  now,  at  this  awful  decisive  moment, 
when  death  was  near — when,  humanly  speaking,  nothing  could  be  gained, 
everything  7iiust  be  lost,  by  the  avowal — there  thrilled  through  all  the 
ages — thrilled  through  that  Eternity,  which  is  the  synchronism  of  all  the 
future,  and  all  the  present,  and  all  the  past — the  solemn  answer,  "I  am;' 
and  ye  shall  see  the  So7i  of  Alan  sitting  ott  the  right  hand  of  power,  and 
coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven." ''  In  that  answer  the  thunder  rolled — 
a  thunder  louder  than  at  Sinai,  though  the  ears  of  the  cynic  and  the 
Sadducee  heard  it  not  then,  nor  hear  it  now.  In  overacted  and  ill- 
omened  horror,  the  unjust  judge  who  had  thus  supplemented  the  failure 
of  the  perjuries  which  he  had  vainly  sought — -the  false  High  Priest  rend- 
ing his  linen  robes  before  the  True^ — demanded  of  the  assembly  His 
instant  condemnation. 

1  In  Matt,  xxvi,  64.     AUord  refers  to  John  xii.  49. 

2  Dan.  vii.  13. 

3  This  was  forbidden  to  the  High  Priest  in  cases  of  mourning  (Lev.  x.  6  ;  xxi.  10) ;  but  the  Jewish 
Haltuha  considered  it  lawful  in  cases  of  blasphemy. 


JESUS  BEFORE  THE  PRIESTS  AND  THE  SANHEDRIN.  555 

"Blasphemy!"  he  exclaimed;  "what  further  need  have  we  of  wit- 
nesses? See,  710ZU  ye  heard  his  blasphemy!  What  is  your  decision?" 
And  with  the  confused  tumultuous  cry,  "  He  is  ish  niavdh"  "  A  man  of 
death,"  "  Guilty  of  death,"  the  dark  conclave  was  broken  up,  and  the 
second  stage  of  the  trial  of   Jesus  was  over.' 

I  Cf.  Numb.  XXXV.  31. 


CHAPTER   LIX. 


■'.Hli    INTERVAL    BETWEEN    THE    TRIALS. 


"  I  gave  my  back  to  the  smiters,  and   my  cheeks  to  them   that  plucked  oil  the  hair;  1  hid  not  my  face 
from  shame  and  spitting." — IsA.  1.  6. 


^§-o^ 


ND  this  was  how  the  Jews  at  last  received  their 
promised  Messiah — longed  for  with  passionate 
hopes  during    two    thousand    years ;    since    then 

',  1     regretted    in    bitter    agony    for    well-nigh     two 


^'-^  thousand  more !  From  this  moment  He  was 
I  ("^  regarded  by  all  the  apparitors  of  the  Jewish 
'^  Court  as  a  heretic,  liable  to  death  by  stoning  ; 
and  was  only  remanded  into  custody  to  be  kept 
till  break  of  day,  because  by  daylight  only,  and 
in  the  Lishcat  Haggazzith,  or  Hall  of  Judgment, 
and  only  by  a  full  session  of  the  entire  San- 
hedrin,  could  He  be  legally  condemned.  And  since  now 
they  looked  upon  Him  as  a  fit  person  to  be  insulted  with 
impunity,  He  was  haled  through  the  court-yard  to  the 
guard-room  with  blows  and  curses,  in  which  it  may  be 
that  not  only  the  attendant  menials,  but  even  the  cold  but  now  infuriated 
Sadducees  took  their  share.  It  was  now  long  past  midnight,  and  the 
spring  air  was  then  most  chilly.  In  the  center  of  the  court  the  servants 
of  the  priests  were  warming  themselves  under  the  frosty  starlight  as  they 
stood  round  a  fire  of  coals.  And  as  He  was  led  past  that  fire  He 
heard — what  was  to  Him  a  more  deadly  bitterness  than  any  which  His 
brutal  persecutors  could  pour  into  His  cup  of  anguish — He  heard  His 
boldest  Apostle  denying  Him  with  oaths. 

For  during  these  two  sad  hours  of  His  commencing  tragedy,  as 
He  stood  in  the  Halls  of  Annas  and  of  Caiaphas,  another  .  moral  trag- 
edy, which  He  had  already  prophesied,  had  been  taking  place  in  the 
outer  court. 

As  far  as  we    can    infer  from    the  various    narratives,"  the    palace    in 

I   In  this  narrative  again  there  are  obvious  variations  in   the   quadruple   accounts  of  the   Evangelists  ; 
but  the  text  will  sufficiently  show  that  there  is  no  irreconcilable  discrepancy  if  they  are  judged  fairly  and 

556 


THE  INTERVAL  BETWEEN  THE  TRIALS.  557 

Jerusalem,  conjointly  occupied  by  Annas  the  real,  and  Caiaphas  the 
titular  High  Priest,  seems  to  have  been  built  round  a  square  court,  and 
entered  by  an  arched  passage  or  vestibule  ;  and  on  the  farther  side  of  it, 
probably  up  a  short  flight  of  steps,'  was  the  hall  in  which  the  committee 
of  the  Sanhedrin  had  met.  Timidly,  and  at  a  distance,  two  only  of  the 
Apostles  had  so  far  recovered  from  their  first  panic  as  to  follow  far  in 
the  rear''  of  the  melancholy  procession.  One  of  these — the  beloved  dis- 
ciple— known  perhaps  to  the  High  Priest's  household  as  a  young  fisher- 
man of  the  Lake  of  Galilee — had  found  ready  admittance,  with  no  at- 
tempt to  conceal  his  sympathies  or  his  identity.  Not  so  the  other.  Un- 
known, and  a  Galilean,  he  had  been  stopped  at  the  door  by  the  youthful 
portress.  Better,  far  better,  had  his  exclusion  been  final.  For  it  was  a 
night  of  tumult,  of  terror,  of  suspicion  ;  and  Peter  was  weak,  and  his  in- 
tense love  was  mixed  with  fear,  and  yet  he  was  venturing  into  the  very 
thick  of  his  most  dangerous  enemies.  But  John,  regretting  that  he 
should  be  debarred  from  entrance,  and  judging  perhaps  of  his  friend's 
firmness  by  his  own,  exerted  his  influence  to  obtain  admission  for  him. 
With  bold  imprudence,  and  concealing  the  better  motives  which  had 
brought  him  thither,  Peter,  warned  though  he  had  been,  but  warned  in 
vain,  walked  into  the  court-yard,  and  sat  down  in  the  very  middle  of  the 
servants  3  of  the  very  men  before  whom  at  that  moment  his  Lord  was 
being  arraigned  on  a  charge  of  death.  The  portress,  after  the  admission 
of  those  concerned  in  the  capture,  seems  to  have  been  relieved  (as  was 
only  natural  at  that  late  hour)  by  another  maid,  and  advancing  to  the 
group  of  her  fellow-servants,  she  fixed  a  curious  and  earnest  gaze''  on  the 
dubious  stranger  as  he  sat  full  in  the  red  glare  of  the  firelight,  and  then, 
with  a  flash  of  recognition,  she  exclaimed,  "  Why,  you,  as  well  as  the 
other,  were  with  Jesus  of  Galilee."  ^  Peter  was  off  his  guard.  At  this 
period    of    life    his    easy    impressionable    nature    was    ever   liable    to    be 

on  common-sense  principles.  The  conception  of  accuracy  in  ancient  writers  differed  widely  from  our  own, 
and  a  document  is  by  no  means  necessarily  inaccurate  because  the  brevity,  or  the  special  purpose,  or  the 
limited  information  of  the  writer,  made  it  necessarily  incomplete.  "The  larger  expression  includes  the 
smaller  ;  the  smaller  does  not  necessarily  contradict  the  larger." 

I  Mark  xiv.  66. 

z  Luke  xxii.  54. 

3  Luke  xxii.  55. 

4  Luke  xxii.  56.  For  the  other  particulars  in  this  clause  compare  John  xviii.  17  with  Matt.  xxvi.  6g; 
Mark  xiv.  67.     For  female  porters,  see  Mark  xiii.  34 ;  Acts  xii.  13. 

5  It  is  most  instructive  to  observe  that  no  ope  of  the  Evangelists  puts  exactly  the  same  words  into  her 
mouth  (showing  clearly  the  nature  of  their  report),  and  yet  each  faithfully  preserves  the  nai,  which,  in  the 
maid's  question,  couples  Peter  with  John. 


558  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

molded  by  the  influence  of  the  moment,  and  he  passed  readily  into 
passionate  extremes.  Long,  long  afterwards,  we  find  a  wholly  unexpected 
confirmation  of  the  probability  of  this  sad  episode  of  his  life,  in  the 
readiness  with  which  he  lent  himself  to  the  views  of  the  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  the  equal  facility  with  which  a  false  shame,  and  a  fear  of 
"them  which  were  of  the  circumcision,"  made  him  swerve  into  the  wrong 
and  narrow  proprieties  of  "certain  which  cam.e  from  James."  And  thus 
it  was  that  the  mere  curious  question  of  an  inquisitive  young  girl  startled 
him  by  its  very  suddenness  into  a  quick  denial  of  his  Lord.  Doubtless, 
at  the  moment,  it  presented  itself  to  him  as  a  mere  prudent  evasion  of 
needless  danger.  But  did  he  hope  to  stop  there?  Alas,  "once  denied" 
is  always  "thrice  denied;"  and  the  sudden  "manslaughter  upon  truth" 
always,  and  rapidly,  develops  into  its  utter  and  deliberate  murder ;  and  a 
lie  is  like  a  stone  set  rolling  upon  a  mountain-side,  which  is  instantly 
beyond  its  utterer's  control. 

For  a  moment,  perhaps,  his  denial  was  accepted,  for  it  had  been 
very  public,  and  very  emphatic'  But  it  warned  him  of  his  danger. 
Guiltily  he  slinks  away  again  from  the  glowing  brazier  to  the  arched 
entrance  of  the  court,  as  the  crowing  of  a  cock  smote,  not  quite 
unheeded,  on  his  guilty  ear.  His  respite  was  very  short.  The  portress — 
part  of  whose  duty  it  was  to  draw  attention  to  dubious  strangers — had 
evidently  gossiped  about  him  to  the  servant  who  had  relieved  her  in 
charge  of  the  door.  Some  other  idlers  were  standing  about,  and  this 
second  maid  pointed  him  out  to  them  as  having  certainly  been  with 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  A  lie  seemed  more  than  ever  necessary  now,  and  to 
secure  himself  from  all  further  molestation  he  even  confirmed  it  with  an 
oath.  But  now  flight  seemed  impossible,  for  it  would  only  confirm  sus- 
picion ;  so  with  desperate,  gloomy  resolution  he  once  more— with  feelings 
which  can  barely  be  imagined — joined  the  unfriendly  and  suspicious  group 
who  were  standing  round  the  fire. 

A  whole  hour  passed :  for  him  it  must  have  been  a  fearful  hour, 
and  one  never  to  be  forgotten.  The  temperament  of  Peter  was  far  too 
nervous  and  vehement  to  suffer  him  to  feel  at  ease  under  this  new  com- 
plication of  ingratitude  and  falsehood.  If  he  remains  silent  among  these 
priestly  servitors,  he  is  betrayed  by  the  restless  self-consciousness  of  an 
evil  secret  which  tries  in  vain  to  simulate  indifference  ;  if  he  brazen  it 
out  with  careless    talk,  he  is  fatally  betrayed   by  his  Galilean    bur.     It  is 

I  Matt.  xxvi.  70 ;  Mark  xiv.  68. 


THE  INTERVAL  BETWEEN  THE  TRIALS.  559 

evident  that,  in  spite  of  denial  -and  of  oath,  they  wholly  distrust  and 
despise  him  ;  and  at  last  one  of  the  High  Priest's  servants — a  kinsman 
of  the  wounded  Malchus— once  more  strongly  and  confidently  charo-ed 
him  with  having  been  with  Jesus  in  the  garden,  taunting  him,  in  proof 
of  it,  with  the  misplaced  gutturals  of  his  provincial  dialect.  The  others 
joined  in  the  accusation,'  Unless  he  persisted,  all  was  lost  which  mio-ht 
seem  to  have  been  gained.  Perhaps  one  more  effort  would  set  him 
quite  free  from  these  troublesome  charges,  and  enable  him  to  wait  and 
see  the  end.  Pressed  closer  and  closer  by  the  sneering,  threatenino-  band 
of  idle  servitors — sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  mire  of  faithless- 
ness and  fear — "then  began  he  to  curse  and  to  swear,  saying,  I  know 
not  the  man."  And  at  that  fatal  moment  of  guilt,  which  might  well  have 
been  for  him  the  moment  of  an  apostacy  as  fatal  and  final  as  had  been 
that  of  his  brother  apostle — at  that  fatal  moment,  while  those  shameless 
curses  still  quivered  on  the  air — first  the  cock  crew  in  the  cold  gray 
dusk,  and  at  the  same  moment,  catching  the  last  accents  of  those  per- 
jured oaths,  either  through  the  open  portal  of  the  judgment  hall,  or  as 
He  was  led  past  the  group  at  the  fireside  through  the  open  court,  with 
rude  pushing  and  ribald  jeers,  and  blows  and  spitting — the  Lord — the 
Lord  in  the  agony  of  His  humiliation,  in  the  majesty  of  His  silence — 
"the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter.''  Blessed  are  those  on  whom, 
when  He  looks  in  sorrow,  the  Lord  looks  also  with  love !  It  was 
enough.  Like  an  arrow  through  his  inmost  soul,  shot  the  mute  eloquent 
anguish  of  that  reproachful  glance.  As  the  sunbeam  smites  the  last  hold 
of  snow  upon  the  rock,  ere  it  rushes  in  avalanche  down  the  tormented 
hill,  so  the  false  self  of  the  fallen  Apostle  slipped  away.  It  was  enouo-h  : 
"  he  saw  no  more  enemies,  he  knew  no  more  danger,  he  feared  no  more 
death."  Flinging  the  fold  of  his  mantle  over  his  head,"  he  too,  like 
Judas,  rushed  forth  into  the  night.  Into  the  night,  but  not  as  Judas; 
into  the  unsunned  outer  darkness  of  miserable  self-condemnation,  but  not 
into  the  midnight  of  remorse  and  of  despair  ;  into  the  night,  but,  as  has 
been  beautifully  said,  it  was  "to  meet  the  morning  dawn."  ^  If  the  ano-el 
of  Innocence  had  left  him,  the  angel  of  Repentance  took  him  gently  by 
the  hand.  Sternly,  yet  tenderly,  the  spirit  of  grace  led  up  this  broken- 
hearted penitent  before  the  tribunal  of  his  own  conscience,  and  there  his 

I  John  xviii.  26 ;  Luke  xxii.  59 ;  Matt.  xxvi.  73  ;  Mark  xiv.  70. 

3  Mark   xiv.    72.     This  seems  a   better  meaning  than   (i.)   "vehemently,"  or  (ii.)   "  when  he  thought 
thereon,"  or  (iii.)  "  hiding  his  face  in  his  hands." 
3  Lange,  vi.  319, 


560  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

old  life,  his  old  shame,  his  old  weakness,  his  old  self  was  doomed 
to  that  death  of  godly  sorrow  which  was  to  issue  in  a  new  and  a 
nobler  birth. 

And  it  was  this  crime,  committed  against  Him  by  the  man  who  had 
iirst  proclaimed  Him  as  the  Christ — who  had  come  to  Him  over  the 
stormy  water — who  had  drawn  the  sword  for  Him  in  Gethsemane — who 
had  affirmed  so  indignantly  that  he  would  die  with  Him  rather  than  deny 
Him — it  was  this  denial,  confirmed  by  curses,  that  Jesus  heard  imme^ 
diately  after  He  had  been  condemned  to  death,  and  at  the  very  con> 
mencement  of  His  first  terrible  derision.  For,  in  the  guard-room  to  which 
He  was  remanded  to  await  the  break  of  day,  all  the  ignorant  malice  of 
relio-ious  hatred,  all  the  narrow  vulgarity  of  brutal  spite,  all  the  cold 
innate  cruelty  which  lurks  under  the  abjectness  of  Oriental  servility,  was 
let  loose  against  Him.  His  very  meekness,  His  very  silence.  His  very 
majesty — the  very  stainlessness  of  His  innocence,  the  very  grandeur  of 
His  fame — every  divine  circumstance  and  quality  which  raised  Him  to  a 
height  so  infinitely  immeasurable  above  His  persecutors — all  these  made 
Him  an  all  the  more  welcome  victim  for  their  low  and  devilish  ferocity. 
They  spat  in  His  face;  they  smote  Him  with  rods;  they  struck  Him 
with  their  closed  fists  and  with  their  open  palms."  In  the  fertility  of 
their  furious  and  hateful  insolence,  they  invented  against  Him  a  sort  of 
game.  Blindfolding  His  eyes,  they  hit  Him  again  and  again,  with  the 
repeated  question,  "  Prophesy  to  us,  O  Messiah,  who  it  is  that  smote  thee." 
So  they  whiled  away  the  dark  cold  hours  till  the  morning,  revenging  them- 
selves upon  His  impassive  innocence  for  their  own  present  vileness  and 
previous  terror  ;  and  there,  in  the  midst  of  that  savage  and  wanton  var- 
letry,  the  Son  of  God,  bound  and  blindfold,  stood  in  His  long  and  silent 
a'Tony,  defenseless  and  alone.  It  was  His  first  derision — His  derision  as 
tlie  Christ,  the  Judge  attainted,  the  Holy  One  a  criminal,  the  Deliverer 
in  bonds. 

iii.  At  last  the  miserable  lingering  hours  were  over,  and  the  gray 
dawn  shuddered,  and  the  morning  blushed  upon  that  memorable  day. 
And  with  the  earliest  dawn — for  so  the  Oral  Law  ordained,  and  they 
who  could  trample  on  all  justice  and  all  mercy  were  yet  scrupulous 
about  all  the  infinitely  little — Jesus  was  led  into  the  Lishcat  Haggazzith, 
or  Paved  Hall  at  the  south-east  of  the  Temple,  or  perhaps  into  the 
Oianujoth,  or  "  Shops,"  which  owed  their    very  existence    to    Hanan    and 

I  Matt.  xxvi.  67  ;  Mark  xiv.  65  ;  Luke  xxii.  63,  64. 


THE  INTERVAL  BETWEEN  THE  TRIALS.  561 

his  family,  where  the  Sanhedrin  had  been  summoned,  for  His  third  actual, 
but  His  first  formal  and  legal  trial.  It  was  now  probably  about  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  a  full  session  met.  Well-nigh  all — for  there 
were  the  noble  exceptions  at  least  of  Nicodemus  and  of  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea,  and  we  may  hope  also  of  Gamaliel,  the  grandson  of  Hillel — were 
inexorably  bent  upon  His  death.  The  Priests  were  there,  whose  greed 
and  selfishness  He  had  reproved  ;  the  Elders,  whose  hypocrisy  He  had 
branded  ;  the  Scribes,  whose  ignorance  He  had  exposed  ;  and  worse  than 
all,  the  worldly,  skeptical,  would-be  philosophic  Sadducees,  always  the  most 
cruel  and  dangerous  of  opponents,  whose  empty  sapience  He  had  so 
grievously  confuted.  All  these  were  bent  upon  His  death  ;  all  filled  with 
repulsion  at  that  infinite  goodness  ;  all  burning  with  hatred  against  a 
nobler  nature  than  any  which  they  could  even  conceive  in  their  loftiest 
dreams.  And  yet  their  task  in  trying  to  achieve  His  destruction  was 
not  easy.  The  Jewish  fables  of  His  death  in  the  Talmud,  which  are 
shamelessly  false  from  beginning  to  end,  say  that  for  forty  days,  though 
summoned  daily  by  heraldic  proclamation,  not  ^one  person  came  forward, 
according  to  custom,  to  maintain  His  innocence,  and  that  consequently 
He  was  first  stoned  as  a  seducer  of  the  people  {incsttJi),  and  then  hung 
on  the  accursed  tree.  The  fact  was  that  the  Sanhedrists  had  not  the 
power  of  inflicting  death,  and  even  if  the  Pharisees  would  have  ventured 
to  usurp  it  in  a  tumultuary  sedition,  as  they  afterwards  did  in  the  case 
of  Stephen,  the  less  fanatic  and  more  cosmopolitan  Sadducees  would  be 
less  likely  to  do  so.  Not  content,  therefore,  with  the  cherem,  or  ban  of 
greater  excommunication,  their  only  way  to  compass  His  death  was  to 
hand  Him  over  to  the  secular  arm."  At  present  they  had  only  against 
Him  a  charge  of  constructive  blasphemy,  founded  on  an  admission 
forced  from  Him  by  the  High  Priest,  when  even  their  own  suborned 
witnesses  had  failed  to  perjure  themselves  to  their  satisfaction.  There 
were  many  old  accusations  against  Him,  on  which  they  could  not  rely. 
His  violations  of  the  Sabbath,  as  they  called  them,  were  all  connected 
with  miracles,  and  brought  them,  therefore,  upon  dangerous  ground.  His 
rejection  of  oral  tradition  involved  a  question  on  which  Sadducees  and 
Pharisees  were  at  deadly  feud.  His  authoritative  cleansing  of  the 
Temple  might  be  regarded  with  favor  both  by  the  Rabbis  and  the 
people.  The  charge  of  esoteric  evil  doctrines  had  been  refuted  by  the 
utter  publicity  of    His  life.      The    charge    of    open    Iieresies    had    broken 

I  Acts  ii.  23. 
3G 


562  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

down,  from  the  total  absence  of  supporting  testimony.  The  problem 
before  them  was  to  convert  the  ecclesiastical  charge  of  constructive 
blasphemy  into  a  civil  charge  of  constructive  treason.  But  how  could 
this  be  done  ?  Not  half  the  members  of  the  Sanhedrin  had  been  present 
at  the  hurried,  nocturnal,  and  therefore  illegal,  session  in  the  house  of 
Caiaphas  ;  yet  if  they  were  all  to  condemn  Him  by  a  former  sentence, 
they  must  all  hear  something  on  which  to  found  their  vote.  In  answer 
to  the  adjuration  of  Caiaphas,  He  had  solemnly  admitted  that  He  was 
the  Messiah  and  the  Son  of  God.  The  latter  declaration  would  have 
been  meaningless  as  a  charge  against  Him  before  the  tribunal  of  the 
Romans  ;  but  if  He  would  repeat  the  former,  they  might  twist  it  into 
something  politically  seditious.  But  He  would  not  repeat  it,  in  spite  of 
their  insistence,  because  He  knew  that  it  was  open  to  their  willful  mis- 
interpretation, and  because  they  were  evidently  acting  in  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  their  own  express  rules  and  traditions,  which  demanded  that  every 
arraigned  criminal  should  be  regarded  and  treated  as  innocent  until  his 
guilt  was  actually  proved. 

Perhaps,  as  they  sat  there  with  their  King,  bound  and  helpless  be- 
fore them,  standing  silent  amid  their  clamorous  voices,  one  or  two  of 
their  most  venerable  members  may  have  recalled  the  very  different  scene 
when  Shemaia  (Sameas)  alone  had  broken  the  deep  silence  of  their  own 
cowardly  terror  upon  their  being  convened  to  pass  judgment  on  Herod 
for  his  murders.  On  that  occasion,  as  Sameas  had  pointed  out,  Herod 
had  stood  before  them,  not  "  in  a  submissive  manner,  with  his  hair  dis- 
heveled, and  in  a  black  and  mourning  garment,"  but  "  clothed  in  purple, 
and  with  the  hair  of  his  head  finely  trimmed,  and  with  his  armed  men 
about  him."  And  since  no  one  dared,  for  very  fear,  even  to  mention  the 
charges  against  him,  Shemaia  had  prophesied  that  the  day  of  vengeance 
should  come,  and  that  the  very  Herod  before  whom  they  and  their 
prince  Hyrcanus  were  trembling,  would  one  day  be  the  minister  of  God's 
anger  against  both  him  and  them.  What  a  contrast  was  the  present 
scene  with  that  former  one  of  half  a  century  before  !  Now  they  were 
clamorous,  their  King  was  silent  ;  they  were  powerful,  their  King  defense- 
less ;  they  guilty,  their  Kmg  divinely  innocent  ;  they  the  ministers  of 
earthly  wrath,  their  King  the  arbiter  of  Divine  retribution. 

But  at  last,  to  end  a  scene  at  once  miserable  and  disgraceful,  Jesus 
spoke.  "If  I  tell  you,"  He  said,  "ye  will  not  believe;  and  if  I  ask  you 
a  question,  you  will    not    answer    me."     Still,  lest    they  should    have  any 


THE  INTERVAL  BETWEEN  THE  TRIALS.  563 

excuse  for  failing  to  understand  who  He  was,  He  added  in  tones  of  sol- 
emn warning,  "  But  henceforth  shall  the  Son  of  Man  sit  on  the  ricrht 
hand  of  the  power  of  God."  "Art  Thou,  then,"  they  all  exclaimed,  "the 
Son  of  God?"'  "Ye  say  that  I  am,"  He  answered,  in  a  formula  with 
which  they  were  familiar,  and  of  which  they  understood  the  full  signifi- 
cance. And  then  they  too  cried  out,  as  Caiaphas  had  done  before, 
"  What  further  need  have  we  of  witness  ?  for  we  ourselves  heard  from 
His  own  mouth."  And  so  in  this  third  condemnation  by  Jewish  authority 
— a  condemnation  which  they  thought  that  Pilate  would  simply  ratify, 
and  so  appease  their  burning  hate — ended  the  third  stage  of  the  trial  of 
our  Lord.  And  this  sentence  also  seems  to  have  been  followed  by  a 
second  derision  "  resembling  the  first,  but  even  more  full  of  insult,  and 
worse  to  bear  than  the  former,  inasmuch  as  the  derision  of  Priests,  and 
Elders,  and  Sadducees  is  even  more  repulsively  odious  than  that  of 
menials  and  knaves. 

Terribly  soon  did  the  Nemesis  fall  on  the  main  actor  in  the  lower  stages 
of  this  iniquity.  Doubtless  through  all  those  hours  Judas  had  been  a 
secure  spectator  of  all  that  had  occurred,  and  when  the  morning  dawned 
upon  that  chilly  night,  and  he  knew  the  decision  of  the  Priests  and  of 
the  Sanhedrin,  and  saw  that  Jesus  was  now  given  over  for  crucifixion  to 
the  Roman  Governor,  then  he  began  fully  to  realize  all  that  he  had 
done.  .  There  is  in  a  great  crime  an  awfully  illuminating  power.  It  lights 
up  the  theater  of  the  conscience  with  an  unnatural  glare,  and,  expelling 
the  twilight  glamour  of  self-interest,  shows  the  actions  and  motives  in 
their  full  and  true  aspect.  In  Judas,  as  in  so  many  thousands  before 
and  since,  this  opening  of  the  eyes  which  follows  the  consummation  of 
an  awful  sin  to  which  many  other  sins  have  led,  drove  him  from  remorse 
to  despair,  from  despair  to  madness,  from  madness  to  suicide.  Had  he, 
even  then,  but  gone  to  his  Lord  and  Saviour,  and  prostrated  himself  at 
His  feet  to  implore  forgiveness,  all  might  have  been  well.  But,  alas!  he 
went  instead  to  the  patrons  and  associates  and  tempters  of  his  crime. 
From  them  he  met  with  no  pity,  no  counsel.  He  was  a  despised  and 
broken  instrument,  and  now  he  was  tossed  aside.  They  met  his  madden- 
ing remorse  with  chilly  indifference  and  callous  contempt.  "  I  have 
sinned,"  he  shrieked  to  them,   "  in  that  I  have  betrayed  innocent  blood." 

1  Cf.  Dan.  vii.  13  ;  Ps.  viii.  4  ;  ex.  i. 

2  Unless  Luke  xxii.  63 — 65  (which  seems  as  though  it  refers  to  verse  71)  describes  the  issue  of  one  of 
the  trials  which  he  has  not  narrated  ;  but,  literally  taken,  we  might  infer  from  Matt.  xxvi.  67,  that  those 
who  insulted  Christ  after  the  second  trial  were  not  only  the  servants. 


554  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Did  he  expect  them  to  console  his  remorseful  agony,  to  share  the  blame 
of  his  guilt,  to  excuse  and  console  him  with  their  lofty  dignity?  "What 
is  that  to  us  ?  See  thou  to  that,"^  was  the  sole  and  heartless  reply  they 
deigned  to  the  poor  traitor  whom  they  had  encouraged,  welcomed,  incited 
to  his  deed  of  infamy.  He  felt  that  he  was  of  no  importance  any  longer; 
that  in  guilt  there  is  no  possibility  of  mutual  respect,  no  basis  for  any 
feeling  but  mutual  abhorrence.  His  paltry  thirty  pieces  of  silver  were 
all  that  he  would  get.  For  these  he  had  sold  his  soul  ;  and  these  he 
should  no  more  enjoy  than  Achan  enjoyed  the  gold  he  buried,  or  Ahab 
the  garden  he  had  seized.  Flinging  them  wildly  down  upon  the  pave- 
ment into  the  holy  place  where  the  priests  sat,  and  into  which  he  might 
not  enter,  he  hurried  into  the  despairing  solitude  from  which  he  would 
never  emerge  alive.  In  that  solitude,  we  may  never  know  what  "  unclean 
wings  "  were  flapping  about  his  head.  Accounts  differed  as  to  the  wretch's 
death.  The  probability  is  that  the  details  were  never  accurately  made 
public.  According  to  one  account,  he  hung  himself,  and  tradition  still 
points  in  Jerusalem  to  a  ragged,  ghastly,  wind-swept  tree,  which  is  called 
the  "  tree  of  Judas."  According  to  another  version — not  irreconcilable 
with  the  first,  if  we  suppose  that  a  rope  or  a  branch  broke  under  his 
weight — he  fell  headlong,  burst  asunder  in  the  midst,  and  all  his  bowels 
o-ushed  out.'  According  to  a  third — current  among  the  early  Christians — 
his  body  swelled  to  a  huge  size,  under  some  hideous  attack  of  elephan- 
tiasis, and  he  was  crushed  by  a  passing  wagon.  The  arch-conspirators, 
in  their  sanctimonious  scrupulosity,  would  not  put  the  blood-money  which 
he  had  returned  into  the  "  Corban,"  or  sacred  treasary,  but,  after  taking 
counsel,  bought  with  it  the  potter's  field  to  bury  strangers  in — a  plot  of 
ground  which  perhaps  Judas  had  intended  to  purchase,  and  in  which  he 
met  his  end.  That  field  was  long  known  and  shuddered  at  as  the  Acel- 
dama, or  "field  of  blood,"  a  place  foul,  haunted,  and  horrible. 

•   I  Matt,  xxvii.  4.     The  same  words  were  given  back  to  them  by  Pilate  (ver.  24). 
2  Acts  i.  18. 


CHAPTER  LX. 


JESUS     BEFORE     PILATE. 


"  He  had  been  punished  by  the  Procurator,  Pontius  Pilate." — Tacitus. 

UFFERED  under  Pontius  Pilate" — so,  in  every 
creed  of  Christendom,  is  the  unhappy  name  of 
the  Roman  Procurator  handed  down  to  eternal 
execration.  Yet  the  object  of  introducing  that 
name  was  not  to  point  a  moral,  but  to  fix  an 
epoch  ;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  of  all  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  rulers  before  whom  Jesus  was 
brought  to  judgment,  Pilate  was  the  least  guilty 
of  malice  and  hatred,  the  most  anxious,  if  not 
to  spare  His  agony,  at  least  to  save  His  life. 
What  manner  of  man  was  this  in  whose 
hands  were  placed,  by  power  from  above,  the  final  destinies 
of  the  Saviour's  life  ?  Of  his  origin,  and  of  his  antecedents 
before  A.D.  26,  when  he  became  the  sixth  Procurator  of 
Judea,  but  little  is  known.  In  rank  he  belonged  to  the 
"knightly  order,"  and  he  owed  his  appointment  to  the  influence  of 
Sejanus.  His  name  "Pontius"  seems  to  point  to  a  Samnite  extraction; 
his  cognomen  "Pilatus"  to  a  warlike  ancestry.  Wis  pracno7nai,  if  he  had 
one,  has  not  been  preserved.  In  Judea  he  had  acted  with  all  the  haughty 
violence  and  insolent  cruelty  of  a  typical  Roman  governor.  Scarcely  had 
he  been  well  installed  as  Procurator,  when,  allowing  his  soldiers  to  bring 
with  them  by  night  the  silver  eagles  and  other  insignia  of  the  legions 
from  Caesarea  to  the  Holy  City,  he  excited  a  furious  outburst  of  Jewish 
feeling  against  an  act  which  they  regarded  as  idolatrous  profanation.  For 
five  days  and  nights — often  lying  prostrate  on  the  bare  ground — they  sur- 
rounded and  almost  stormed  his  residence  at  Caesarea  with  tumultuous 
and  threatening  entreaties,  and  could  not  be  made  to  desist  on  the  sixth, 
even  by  the  peril  of  immediate  and  indiscriminate  massacre  at  the  hands 
of  the  soldiers  whom  he  sent  to  surround  them.  He  had  then  sullenly 
given  way,  and    this    foretaste  of    the  undaunted  and  fanatical  resolution 


566  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  the  people  with  whom  he  had  to  deal,  went  far  to  embitter  his  whole 
administration  with  a  sense  of  overpowering  disgust. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Jews  on  a  second  occasion  was  perhaps  less 
justifiable,  but  it  might  easily  have  been  avoided,  if  Pilate  would  have 
studied  their  character  a  little  more  considerately,  and  paid  more  respect 
to  their  dominant  superstition.  Jerusalem  seems  to  have  always  suffered, 
as  it  does  very  grievously  to  this  day,  from  a  bad  and  deficient  supply 
of  water.  To  remedy  this  inconvenience,  Pilate  undertook  to  build  an 
aqueduct,  by  which  water  could  be  brought  from  the  "  Pools  of 
Solomon."  Regarding  this  as  a  matter  of  public  benefit,  he  applied  to 
the  purpose  some  of  the  money  from  the  "  Corban,"  or  sacred  treasury, 
and  the  people  rose  in  furious  myriads  to  resent  this  secular  appropria- 
tion of  their  sacred  fund.  Stung  by  their  insults  and  reproaches,  Pilate 
disguised  a  number  of  his  soldiers  in  Jewish  costume,  and  sent  them 
among  the  mob,  with  staves  and  daggers  concealed  under  their  garments, 
to  punish  the  ringleaders.  Upon  the  refusal  of  the  Jews  to  separate 
quietly,  a  signal  was  given,  and  the  soldiers  carried  out  their  instructions 
with  such  hearty  good-will,  that  they  wounded  and  beat  to  death  not  a 
few  both  of  the  guilty  and  the  innocent,  and  created  so  violent  a  tumult 
that  many  perished  by  being  trodden  to  death  under  the  feet  of  the 
terrified  and  surging  mob.  Thus,  in  a  nation  which  produced  the  sicarii, 
Pilate  had  given  a  fatal  precedent  of  sicarian  conduct ;  the  Assassins  had 
received  from  their  Procurator  an  example  of  the  use  of  political 
assassination. 

A  third  seditious  tumult  must  still  more  have  embittered  the  disgust 
of  the  Roman  Governor  for  his  subjects,  by  showing  him  how  impossible 
it  was  to  live  among  such  a  people — even  in  a  conciliatory  spirit — without 
outraging  some  of  their  sensitive  prejudices.  In  the  Herodian  palace  at 
Jerusalem,  which  he  occupied  during  the  festivals,  he  had  hung  some 
gilt  shields  dedicated  to  Tiberius.  In  the  speech  of  Agrippa  before  the 
Emperor  Gaius,  as  narrated  by  Philo,  this  act  is  attributed  to  wanton 
m.alice  ;  but  since,  by  the  king's  own  admission,  the  shields  were  perfectly 
plain,  and  were  merely  decorated  with  a  votive  inscription,  it  is  fair  to 
suppose  that  the  Jews  had  taken  offense  at  what  Pilate  simply  intended 
for  a  harmless  private  ornament ;  and  one  which,  moreover,  he  could 
hardly  remove  without  some  danger  of  offending  the  gloomy  and  sus- 
picious Emperor  to  whose  honor  they  were  dedicated.  Since  he  would 
not  give  way,  the  chief  men  of  the  nation  wrote  a  letter  of  complaint  to 


JESUS  5EFORE  PILATE.  567 

Tiberius  himself.  It  was  a  part  of  Tiberius'  policy  to  keep  the  provinces 
contented,  and  his  masculine  intellect  despised  the  obstinacy  which  would 
risk  an  insurrection  rather  than  sacrifice  a  whim.  He  therefore  repri- 
manded Pilate,  and  ordered  the  obnoxious  shields  to  be  transferred  from 
Jerusalem  to  the  Temple  of  Augustus  at  Csesarea. 

The  latter  incident  is  related  by  Philo  only ;  and  besides  these  three 
outbreaks,  we  hear  in  the  Gospels  of  some  wild  tumult  in  which  Pilate 
had  mingled  the  blood  of  the  Galileans  with  their  sacrifices.  He  was 
finally  expelled  from  his  Procuratorship  in  consequence  of  an  accusation 
preferred  against  him  by  the  Samaritans,  who  complained  to  Lucius 
Vitellius,  the  Legate  of  Syria,  that  he  had  wantonly  attacked,  slain,  and 
executed  a  number  of  them  who  had  assembled  on  Mount  Gerizim  by 
the  invitation  of  an  imposter — possibly  Simon  Magus — who  promised  to 
show  them  the  Ark  and  sacred  vessels  of  the  Temple,  which,  he  said, 
had  been  concealed  there  by  Moses.  The  conduct  of  Pilate  seems  on. 
this  occasion  to  have  been  needlessly  prompt  and  violent  ;  and  although, 
when  he  arrived  at  Rome,  he  found  that  Tiberius  was  dead,  yet  even 
Gaius  refused  to  reinstate  him  in  his  government,  thinking  it  no  doubt 
a  bad  sign  that  he  should  thus  have  become  unpleasantly  involved  with 
the  people  of  every  single  district  in  his  narrow  government.  Sejanus 
had  shown  the  most  utter  dislike  against  the  Jews,  and  Pilate  probably 
reflected  his  patron's  antipathies. 

Such  was  Pontius  Pilate,  whom  the  pomps  and  perils  of  the  great 
yearly  festival  had  summoned  from  his  usual  residence  at  Caesarea  Phil- 
ippi  to  the  capital  of  the  nation  which  he  detested,  and  the  headquarters 
of  a  fanaticism  which  he  despised.  At  Jerusalem  he  occupied  one  of  the 
two  gorgeous  palaces  which  had  been  erected  there  by  the  lavish  archi- 
tectural extravagance  of  the  first  Herod.  It  was  situated  in  the  Upper 
City  to  the  south-west  of  the  Temple  Hill,  and  like  the  similar  building 
at  Caesarea,  having  passed  from  the  use  of  the  provincial  king  to  that  of 
the  Roman  governor,  was  called  Herod's  Pretorium.  It  was  one  of  those 
luxurious  abodes,  "  surpassing  description,"  which  were  in  accordance  with 
the  tendencies  of  the  age,  and  on  which  Jesephus  dwells  with  ecstasies 
of  admiration.  Between  its  colossal  wings  of  white  marble — called  respect- 
ively Caesareum  and  Agrippeum,  in  the  usual  spirit  of  Herodian  flattery 
to  the  Imperial  house— was  an  open  space  commanding  a  noble  view  of 
Jerusalem,  adorned  with  sculptured  porticoes  and  columns  of  many-colored 
marble,    paved   with    rich    mosaics,    varied   with   fountains   and    reservoirs. 


568  THE  PRINCE  OF.  GLORY. 

and  green  promenades  which  furnished  a  delightful  asylum  to  flocks 
of  doves.  Externally  it  was  a  mass  of  lofty  walls,  and  towers,  and 
gleaming  roofs,  mingled  in  exquisite  varieties  of  splendor;  within,  its 
superb  rooms,  large  enough  to  accommodate  a  hundred  guests,  were 
adorned  with  gorgeous  furniture  and  vessels  of  gold  and  silver.  A  mag 
nificent  abode  for  a  mere  Roman  knight !  and  yet  the  furious  fanaticism 
of  the  populace  at  Jerusalem  made  it  a  house  so  little  desirable,  that 
neither  Pilate  nor  his  predecessors  seem  to  have  cared  to  enjoy  its  lux- 
uries for  more  than  a  few  weeks  in  the  whole  year.  They  were  forced 
to  be  present  in  the  Jewish  capital  during  those  crowded  festivals  which 
were  always  liable  to  be  disturbed  by  some  outburst  of  inflammable 
patriotism,  and  they  soon  discovered  that  even  a  gorgeous  palace  can 
furnish  but  a  repulsive  residence  if  it  be  built  on  the  heaving  lava  of  a 
volcano. 

In  that  kingly  palace — such  as  in  His  days  of  freedom  He  had  never 
trod — began,  in  three  distinct  acts,  the  fourth  stage  of  that  agitating 
scene  which  preceded  the  final  agonies  of  Christ.  It  was  unlike  the  idle 
inquisition  of  Annas — the  extorted  confession  of  Caiaphas — the  illegal 
decision  of  the  Sanhedrin ;  for  here  His  judge  was  in  His  favor,  and 
with  all  the  strength  of  a  feeble  pride,  and  all  the  daring  of  a  guilty 
cowardice,  and  all  the  pity  of  which  a  blood-stained  nature  was  capable, 
did  strive  to  deliver  Him.  This  last  trial  is  full  of  passion  and  move- 
ment :  it  involves  a  threefold  change  of  scene,  a  threefold  accusation,  a 
threefold  acquittal  by  the  Romans,  a  threefold  rejection  by  the  Jews,  a 
threefold  warning  to  Pilate,  and  a  threefold  effort  on  his  part,  made  with 
ever-increasing  energy  and  ever-deepening  agitation,  to  bafifle  the  accusers 
and  to  set  the  victim  free." 

I.  It  was  probably  about  seven  in  the  morning  that,  thinking  to 
overawe  the  Procurator  by  their  numbers  and  their  dignity,  the  imposing 
procession  of  the  Sanhedrists  and  Priests,  headed,  no  doubt,  by  Caiaphas 
himself,  conducted  Jesus,  with  a  cord  round  His  neck,=  from  their  Hall 
of  Meeting  over  the  lofty  bridge  which  spanned  the  Valley  of  the 
Tyropoeon,  in  presence  of  all  the  city,  with  the  bound  hands  of  a 
sentenced  criminal,  a  spectacle  to  angels  and  to  men. 

1  German  criticism  has,  without  any  sufficient  grounds,  set  aside  as  unhistorical  much  of  St.  John's 
narrative  of  this  trial  ;  but  although  it  is  not  mentioned  either  by  Josephus  or  by  Philo,  it  agrees  in  the 
very  minutest  particulars  with  everything  which  we  could  expect  from  the  accounts  which  they  give  us, 
both  of  Pilate's  own  character  and  antecedents,  and  of  the  relations  in  which  he  stood  to  the  Emperor  and 
to  the  Jews. 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  2  ;  Mark  xv.  i. 


CHRIST  BEARING  THE  CROSS. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  569 

Disturbed  at  this  early  hour,  and  probably  prepared  for  some  Paschal 
disturbance  more  serious  than  usual,  Pilate  entered  the  Hall  of  Judgment, 
whither  Jesus  had  been  led,  in  company  (as  seems  clear)  with  a  certain 
number  of  His  accusers  and  of  those  most  deeply  interested  in  His  case.' 
But  the  great  Jewish  hierarchs,  shrinking  from  ceremonial  pollution, 
though  not  from  moral  guilt — afraid  of  leaven,  though  not  afraid  of 
innocent  blood — refused  to  enter  the  Gentile's  hall,  lest  they  should  be 
polluted,  and  should  consequently  be  unable  that  night  to  eat  the  Pass- 
over. In  no  good  humor,  but  in  haughty  and  half-necessary  condescen- 
sion to  what  he  would  regard  as  the  despicable  superstitions  of  an  inferior 
race,  Pilate  goes  out  to  them  under  the  burning  early  sunlight  of  an 
Eastern  spring.  One  haughty  glance  takes  in  the  pompous  assemblage 
of  priestly  notables,  and  the  turbulent  mob  of  this  singular  people,  equally 
distasteful  to  him  as  a  Roman  and  as  a  ruler ;  and  observing  in  that  one 
glance  the  fierce  passions  of  the  accusers,  as  he  had  already  noted  the 
meek  ineffable  grandeur  of  their  victim,  his  question  is  sternly  brief: 
"  What  accusation  bring  ye  against  this  man  ?  "  The  question  took  them 
by  surprise,  and  showed  them  that  they  must  be  prepared  for  an  uncon- 
cealed antagonism  to  all  their  purposes.  Pilate  evidently  intended  a 
judicial  inquiry  ;  they  had  expected  only  a  license  to  kill,  and  to  kill,  not 
by  a  Jewish  method  of  execution,  but  by  one  which  they  regarded  as 
more  horrible  and  accursed.''  "  If  He  were  not  a  malefactor,"  is  their 
indefinite  and  surly  answer,  "we  would  not  have  delivered  Him  up  unto 
thee."  But  Pilate's  Roman  knowledge  of  law,  his  Roman  instinct  of 
justice,  his  Roman  contempt  for  their  murderous  fanaticism,  made  him 
not  choose  to  act  upon  a  charge  so  entirely  vague,  nor  give  the  sanction 
of  his  tribunal  to  their  dark  disorderly  decrees.  He  would  not  deign  to 
be  an  executioner  where  he  had  not  been  a  judge.  "  Very  well,"  he 
answered,  with  a  superb  contempt,  "  take  ye  Him  and  judge  Him 
according  to  your  law."  But  now  they  are  forced  to  the  humiliating 
confession  that,  having  been  deprived  of  the  "  right  of   the  sword,"  they 

1  Being  only  a  procurator,  Pilate  had  no  quaestor,  and  therefore  was  obliged  to  try  all  causes  himself. 
In  this  instance,  he  very  properly  refused  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  the  execution  without  sharing  in 
the  trial.     He  did  not  choose  to  degrade  himself  into  a  mere  tool  of  Jewish  superstition. 

2  Deut.  xxi.  22,  23.  Hence  the  name  of  hatred,  "  t/te  Hnng"  applied  to  Christ  in  the  Talmud; 
and  Christians  are  called  "  servants  of  the  Hung."  Their  reasons  for  desiring  His  crucifixion  may 
have  been  manifold,  besides  the  obvious  motives  of  hatred  and  revenge,  (i.)  It  would  involve  the 
name  and  memory  of  Jesus  in  deeper  discredit.  (2.)  It  would  render  the  Roman  authorities  accom- 
plices in  the  responsibility  of  the  murder.  (3.)  It  would  greatly  diminish  any  possible  chance  of  a  popular 
Aneute. 


570  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

cannot  inflict  the  death  which  alone  will  satisfy  them  ;  for  Indeed  it  stood 
written  in  the  eternal  councils  that  Christ  was  to  die,  not  by  Jewish 
stoning  or  strangulation,  but  by  that  Roman  form  of  execution  which 
inspired  the  Jews  with  a  nameless  horror,  even  by  crucifixion  ;  that  He 
was  to  reign  from  His  cross — to  die  by  that  most  fearfully  significant 
and  typical  of  deaths— public,  slow,  conscious,  accursed,  agonizing — worse 
even  than  burning — the  worst  type  of  all  possible  deaths,  and  the  worst 
result  of  that  curse  which  He  was  to  remove  for  ever.  Dropping,  there- 
fore, for  the  present  the  charge  of  blasphemy,  which  did  not  suit  their 
purpose,  they  burst  into  a  storm  of  invectives  against  Him,  in  which  are 
discernible  the  triple  accusations,  that  He  perverted  the  nation,  that  He 
forbade  to  give  tribute,  that  He  called  himself  a  king. 

All  three  charges  were  flagrantly  false,  and  the  third  all  the  more 
so  because  it  included  a  grain  of  truth.  But  since  they  had  not  con- 
fronted Jesus  with  any  proofs  or  witnesses,  Pilate — in  whose  whole 
bearing  and  language  is  manifest  the  disgust  embittered  by  fear  with 
which  the  Jews  inspired  him — deigns  to  notice  the  third  charge  alone, 
and  proceeds  to  discover  whether  the  confession  of  the  prisoner — always 
held  desirable  by  Roman  institutions — would  enable  him  to  take  any  cog- 
nizance of  it.  Leaving  the  impatient  Sanhedrin  and  the  raging  crowd, 
he  retired  into  the  Judgment  Hall.  St.  John  alone  preserves  for  us  the 
memorable  scene.  Jesus,  though  not  "  in  soft  clothing,"  though  not  a 
denizen  of  kings'  houses,  had  been  led  up  the  noble  flight  of  stairs,  over 
the  floors  of  agate  and  lazuli,  under  the  gilded  roofs,  ceiled  with  cedar 
and  painted  with  vermilion,  which  adorned  but  one  abandoned  palace  of 
a  great  king  of  the  Jews.  There,  amid  those  voluptuous  splendors, 
Pilate — already  interested,  already  feeling  in  this  prisoner  before  him 
some  nobleness  which  touched  his  Roman  nature — asked  Him  in  pitying 
wonder,  "Art  tliou  the  King  of  the  Jews?" — thou  poor,  worn,  tear- 
stained  outcast  In  this  hour  of  thy  bitter  need — oh,  pale,  lonely,  friend- 
less, wasted  man,  in  thy  poor  peasant  garments,  with  thy  tied  hands, 
and  the  foul  traces  of  the  insults  of  thine  enemies  on  thy  face,  and  on 
thy  robes — thou,  so  unlike  the  fierce  magnificent  Herod,  whom  this  mul- 
titude which  thirsts  for  thy  blood  acknowledged  as  their  sovereign — art 
tJioji  the  King  of  the  Jews  ?  There  is  a  royalty  which  Pilate,  and  men 
like  Pilate,  cannot  understand — a  royalty  of  holiness,  a  supremacy  of  self- 
sacrifice.  To  say  "No"  would  have  been  to  belie  the  truth;  to  say 
"Yes"  would    have   been    to  mislead    the  questioner.     "Sayest  thou  this 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  571 

of  thyself?"  He  answered  with  gentle  dignity,  "or  did  others  tell  it 
thee  of  me  ?  "  '  "  Am  I  a  Jew  ?  "  is  the  disdainful  answer.  "  Thy  own 
nation  and  the  chief  priests  delivered  thee  unto  me.  What  hast  thou 
done?"  Done? — works  of  wonder,  and  mercy,  and  power,  and  innocence, 
and  these  alone.  But  Jesus  reverts  to  the  first  question,  now  that  He 
has  prepared  Pilate  to  understand  the  answer:  "Yes,  He  is  a  king;  but 
not  of  this  world  ;  not  from  hence  ;  not  one  for  whom  His  servants  would 
fight."  "Thou  ari  a  king,  then?"  said  Pilate  to  Him  in  astonishment. 
Yes  !  but  a  king  not  in  this  region  of  falsities  and  shadows,  but  one 
born  to  bear  witness  unto  the  truth,  and  one  whom  all  who  were  of  the 
truth  should  hear.  "  Truth,"  said  Pilate  impatiently,  "  what  is  /r«M .? " 
What  had  he — a  busy,  practical  Roman  governor — to  do  with  such  dim 
abstractions  ?  what  bearing  had  they  on  the  question  of  life  and  death  ? 
what  unpractical  hallucination,  what  fairyland  of  dreaming  phantasy  was 
this  ?  Yet,  though  he  contemptuously  put  the  discussion  aside,  he  was 
touched  and  moved.  A  judicial  mind,  a  forensic  training,  familiarity  with 
human  nature  which  had  given  him  some  insight  into  the  characters  of 
men,  showed  him  that  Jesus  was  not  only  wholly  innocent,  but  infinitely 
nobler  and  better  than  His  raving  sanctimonious  accusers.  He  wholly 
set  aside  the  floating  idea  of  an  unearthly  royalty ;  he  saw  in  the  pris- 
oner before  'his  tribunal  an  innocent  and  high-souled  dreamer,  nothing 
more.  And  so,  leaving  Jesus  there,  he  went  out  again  to  the  Jews,  and 
pronounced  his  first  emphatic  and  unhesitating  acquittal :  "  I  find  in  Him 

NO    FAULT    AT    ALL." 

2.  But  this  public  decided  acquittal  only  kindled  the  fury  of  His 
enemies  into  yet  fiercer  flame.  After  all  that  they  had  hazarded,  after 
all  that  they  had  inflicted,  after  the  sleepless  night  of  their  plots,  adjura- 
tions, insults,  was  their  purpose  to  be  foiled  after  all  by  the  intervention 
of  the  very  Gentiles  on  whom  they  had  relied  for  its  bitter  consumma- 
tion ?  Should  this  victim,  whom  they  had  thus  clutched  in  their  deadly 
grasp,  be  rescued  from  .High  Priests  and  rulers  by  the  contempt  or  the 
pity  of  an  insolent  heathen  ?  It  was  too  intolerable  !  Their  voices  rose 
in  wilder  tumult.  "He  was  a  mcsith ;  He  had  upset  the  people  with 
His  teaching  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  beginnino-  from 
Galilee,  even  as  far  as  here." 

Amid  these  confused  and  passionate  exclamations    the    practiced    ear 

I  This  shows  that  Jesus,  who  seems  to  have  been  led  immediately  inside  the  walls  of  the  Pretorium 
had  not  heard  the  charges  laid  against  Him  before  the  Procurator. 


572  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  Pilate  caught  the  name  of  "  Gahlee,"  and  he  understood  that  Galilee 
had  been  the  chief  scene  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus.'  Eager  for  a  chance 
of  dismissing  a  business  of  which  he  was  best  pleased  to  be  free,  he  pro- 
posed, by  a  masterstroke  of  astute  policy,  to  get  rid  of  an  embarrassing 
prisoner,  to  save  himself  from  a  disagreeable  decision,  and  to  do  an  un- 
expected complaisance  to  the  unfriendly  Galilean  tetrarch,  who,  as  usual, 
had  come  to  Jerusalem — nominally  to  keep  the  Passover,  really  to  please 
his  subjects,  and  to  enjoy  the  sensations  and  festivities  offered  at  that 
season  by  the  densely-crowded  capital.  Accordingly  Pilate,  secretly  glad 
to  wash  his  hands  of  a  detestable  responsibility,  sent  Jesus  to  Herod 
Antipas,"  who  was  probably  occupying  the  old  Asmonean  palace,  -which 
had  been  the  royal  residence  at  Jerusalem  until  it  had  been  surpassed 
by  the  more  splendid  one  which  the  prodigal  tyrant,  his  father,  had  built. 
And  so,  through  the  thronged  and  narrow  streets,  amid  the  jeering,  raging 
multitudes,  the  weary  Sufferer  was  dragged  once  more. 

We  have  caught  glimpses  of  this  Herod  Antipas  before,  and  I  do 
not  know  that  all  History,  in  its  gallery  of  portraits,  contains  a  much 
more  despicable  figure  than  this  wretched,  dissolute  Idumaean  Sadducee 
— this  petty  princeling  drowned  in  debauchery  and  blood.  To  him  was 
addressed  the  sole  purely  contemptuous  expression  that  Jesus  is  ever  re- 
corded to  have  used.'  Superstition  and  incredulity  usually  go  together; 
avowed  atheists  have  yet  believed  in  augur)',  and  men  who  do  not  believe 
in  God  will  believe  in  ghosts. ••  Antipas  was  rejoiced  beyond  all  things 
to  see  Jesus.  He  had  long  been  wanting  to  see  Him  because  of  the 
rumors  he  had  heard  ;  and  this  murderer  of  the  prophets  hoped  that 
Jesus  would,  in  compliment  to  royalty,  amuse  by  some  miracle  his  gaping 
curiosity.  He  harangued  and  questioned  Him  in  many  words,  but  gained 
not  so  much  as  one  syllable  in  reply.  Our  Lord  confronted  all  his 
ribald  questions  with  the  majesty  of  silence.  To  such  a  man,  who  even 
changed  scorn  into  a  virtue,  speech  would  clearly  have  been  a  profana- 
tion.     Then  all  the  savage  vulgarity  of   the  man  came   out    through  the 

1  Luke  xxiii.  6. 

2  Luke  xxiii.  7.  Mutual  jealousies,  and  tendencies  to  interfere  with  each  other's  authority,  are  quite 
sufficient  to  account  for  the  previous  ill-will  of  Pilot  and  Herod.  Moreover,  in  all  disputes  it  had  been 
the  obvious  policy  of  Antipas  to  side  with  the  Jews.  Renan  aptly  compares  the  relations  of  the  Herods  to 
the  Procurator  with  that  of  the  Hindoo  Rajahs  to  the  Viceroy  of  India  under  the  English  dominion. 

3  Luke  xiii.  32. 

4  Philippe  d'Orlfians  (Egalitfe),  a  professed  atheist,  when  in  prison,  tried  to  divine  his  fate  by  the 
grounds  in  a  coffee-cup  !  This  atheistic  age  swarmed  with  Chaldaei,  mathematici,  magicians,  sorcerers, 
charlatans,  impostors  of  every  class. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  573 

thin  veneer  of  a  superficial  cultivation.  For  the  second  time  Jesus  is 
derided — derided  this  time  as  Priest  and  Prophet.  Herod  and  his  corrupt 
hybrid  myrmidons  "set  Him  at  naught" — treated  Him  with  the  insolence 
of  a  studied  contempt.  Mocking  His  innocence  and  His  misery  in  a 
festal  and  shining  robe,'  the  empty  and  wicked  prince  sent  Him  back  to 
the  Procurator,  to  whom  he  now  became  half-reconciled  after  a  long- 
standing enmity.  But  he  contented  himself  with  these  cruel  insults.  He 
resigned  to  the  fortim  apprehensionis  all  further  responsibility  as  to  the 
issue  of  the  trial.  Though  the  Chief  Priests  and  Scribes  stood  about 
his  throne,  unanimously  instigating  him  to  a  fresh  and  more  heinous  act 
of  murder  by  their  intense  accusations,""  he  practically  showed  that  he 
thought  their  accusations  frivolous,  by  treating  them  as  a  jest.  It  was 
the  fifth  trial  of  Jesus  ;  it  was  His  second  public  distinct  acquittal. 

3.  And  now,  as  He  stood  once  more  before  the  perplexed  and  waver- 
ing Governor,  began  the  sixth,  the  last,  the  most  agitating  and  agonizing 
phase  of  this  terrible  inquisition.  Now  was  the  time  for  Pilate  to  have 
acted  on  a  clear  and  right  conviction,  and  saved  himself  for  ever  from 
the  guilt  of  innocent  blood.  He  came  out  once  more,  and  seating  him- 
self on  a  stately  bona — perhaps  the  golden  throne  of  Archelaus,  which 
was  placed  on  the  elevated  pavement  of  many-colored  marble ^ — summoned 
the  Priests,  the  Sanhedrists,  and  the  people  before  him,  and  seriously 
told  them  that  they  had  brought  Jesus  to  his  tribunal  as  a  leader  of 
sedition  and  turbulence  ;  that  after  full  and  fair  inquiry  he,  their  Roman 
Governor,  had  found  their  prisoner  absolutely  guiltless  of  these  charges ; 
that  he  had  then  sent  Him  to  Herod,  their  native  king,  and  that  he  also 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Jesus  had  committed  no  crime  which 
deserved  the  punishment  of  death.  And  now  came  the  golden  oppor- 
tunity for  him  to  vindicate  the  grandeur  of  his  country's  imperial  justice, 
and,  as  he  had  pronounced  Him  absolutely  innocent,  to  set  Him  abso- 
lutely free. 

But  exactly  at  that  point  he  wavered  and  temporized.  The 
dread  of  another  insurrection  haunted  him  like  a  nightmare.  He  was 
willing  to  go  half-way  to  please  these  dangerous  sectaries.  To  justify 
them,  as  it  were,  in  their  accusation,  he  would  chastise  Jesus — scourge 
Him  publicly,  as  though  to  render    His    pretensions    ridiculous — disgrace 

1  Luke  xxiii.  11 — probably  "  white,"  as  a  festive  color. 

2  Cf.  Acts  xviii.  28. 

3  John  xix.  13,  "Gabbatha."     The  Roman  governors  and  generals  attached  great  importance  to  these 
tessellated  pavements  on  which  their  tribunals  were  placed. 


574  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  ruin  Him — "make  Him  seem  vile  in  their  eyes " '—and  M^«  set  Him 
free.  And  this  notion  of  setting  Him  free  suggested  to  him  another  re- 
source of  tortuous  policy.  Both  he  and  the  people  almost  simultaneously 
bethought  themselves  that  it  had  always  been  a  Paschal  boon  to  liberate 
at  the  feast  some  condemned  prisoner.  He  offered,  therefore,  to 
make  the  acquittal  of  Jesus  an  act  not  of  imperious  justice,  but  of  arti- 
ficial grace. 

In  making  this  suggestion — in  thus  flagrantly  tampering  with  his 
innate  sense  of  right,  and  resigning  against  his  will  the  best  prerogative 
of  his  authority — he  was  already  acting  in  spite  of  a  warning  which  he 
had  received.  That  first  warning  consisted  in  the  deep  misgiving,  the 
powerful  presentiment,  which  overcame  him  as  he  looked  on  his  bowed 
and  silent  prisoner.  But,  as  though  to  strengthen  him  in  his  resolve  to 
prevent  an  absolute  failure  of  all  justice,  he  now  received  a  second  solemn 
warning — and  one  which  to  an  ordinary  Roman,  and  a  Roman  who  re- 
membered Caesar's  murder  and  Calpurnia's  dream,  might  well  have  seemed 
divinely  sinister.  His  own  wife — Claudia  Procula''— ventured  to  send  him 
a  public  message,  even  as  he  sat  there  on  his  tribunal,  that  in  the  morn- 
ing hours,  when  dreams  are  true,^  she  had  had  a  troubled  and  painful 
dream  about  that  Just  Man  ;  and,  bolder  than  her  husband,  she  bade  him 
beware  how  he  molested  Him. 

Gladly,  most  gladly,  would  Pilate  have  yielded  to  his  own  presenti- 
ments— have  gratified  his  pity  and  his  justice — have  obeyed  the  prohibi- 
tion conveyed  by  this  mysterious  omen.  Gladly  even  would  he  have 
yielded  to  the  worse  and  baser  instinct  of  asserting  his  power,  and 
thwarting  these  envious  and  hated  fanatics,  whom  he  knew  to  be  raven- 
ing for  innocent  blood.  That  they — to  many  of  whom  sedition  was  as 
the  breath  of  life — should  be  sincere  in  charging  Jesus  with  sedition  was, 
as  he  well  knew,  absurd.  Their  utterly  transparent  hypocrisy  in  this 
matter  only  added  to  his  undisguised  contempt.  If  he  could  have  dared 
to  show  his  real  instincts,  he  would  have  driven  them  from  his  tribunal 
with  all  the  haughty  insouciance  of  a  Gallic.  But  Pilate  was  guilty,  and  / 
guilt  is  cowardice,  and  cowardice  is  weakness.  His  own  past  cruelties,  •, 
recoiling  in  kind  on  his  own  head,  forced  him  now  to  crush  the  im- 
pulse of  pity,  and  to   add    to    his    many  cruelties    another    more    heinous 

1  Deut.  XXV.  3. 

2  Her  name  is  given  in  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  which  says  she  was  a  proselyte. 

3  Matt,  xxvii.  19. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  575 

Still.'  He  knew  that  serious  complaints  hung  over  his  head.  Those  Samari- 
tans whom  he  had  insulted  and  oppressed — those  Jews  whom  he  had  stabbed 
promiscuously  in  the  crowd  by  the  hands  of  his  disguised  and  secret 
emissaries — those  Galileans  whose  blood  he  had  mingled  with  their 
sacrifices — was  not  their  blood  crying  for  vengeance  ?  Was  not  an  embassy 
of  complaint  against  him  imminent  even  now  ?  Would  it  not  be  danger- 
ously precipitated  if,  in  so  dubious  a  matter  as  a  charge  of  claiming  a 
kingdom,  he  raised  a  tumult  among  a  people  in  whose  case  it  was  the 
best  interest  of  the  Romans  that  they  should  hug  their  chains  ?  Dare 
he  stand  the  chance  of  stirring  up  a  new  and  apparently  terrible  rebel- 
lion rather  than  condescend  to  a  simple  concession,  which  was  rapidly 
assuming  the  aspect  of  a  politic,  and  even  necessary  compromise  ? 

His  tortuous  policy  recoiled  on  his  own  head,  and  rendered  impos- 
sible his  own  wishes.  The  Nemesis  of  his  past  wrong-doing  was  that  he 
could  no  longer  do  right.  Hounded  on'  by  the  Priests  and  Sanhedrists, 
the  people  impetuously  claimed  the  Paschal  boon  of  which  he  had 
reminded  them  ;  but  in  doing  so  they  unmasked  still  more  decidedly  the 
sinister  nature  of  their  hatred  against  their  Redeemer.  For  while  they 
were  professing  to  rage  against  the  asserted  seditiousness  of  One  who 
was  wholly  obedient  and  peaceful,  they  shouted  for  the  liberation  of  a 
man  whose  notorious  sedition  had  been  also  stained  by  brigandage  and 
murder.  Loathing  the  innocent,  they  loved  the  guilty,  and  claimed  the 
Procurator's  grace  on  behalf,  not  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  but  of  a  man  who, 
in  the  fearful  irony  of  circumstance,  was  also  called  Jesus — Jesus  Bar- 
Abbas — who  not  only  was  what  they  falsely  said  of  Christ,  a  leader  of 
sedition,  but  also  a  robber  and  a  murderer.  It  was  fitting  that  //ic)',  who 
had  preferred  an  abject  Sadducee  to  their  True  Priest,  and  an  incestuous 
Idumaean  to  their  Lord  and  King,  should  deliberately  prefer  a  murderer 
to  their  Messiah. 

It  may  be  that  Bar-Abbas  had  been  brought  forth,  and  that  thus 
Jesus  the  scowling  murderer  and  Jesus  the  innocent  Redeemer  stood 
together  on  that  high  tribunal  side  by'  side.  The  people,  persuaded  by 
their  priests,  clamored  for  the  liberation  of  the  rebel  and  the  robber.     To 

1  We  see  the  same  notions  very  strikingly  at  work  in  his  former  dispute  with  the  Jews  about  the 
shields — "  He  was  afraid  that,  if  they  should  send  an  embassy,  they  might  discuss  the  many  mal-adminis- 
trations  of  his  government,  his  extortions,  his  unjust  decrees,  his  inhuman  punishments.  This  reduced 
him  to  the  utmost  perplexity."     (Philo.) 

2  Mark  xv.  11.  History,  down  to  this  day,  has  given  us  numberless  instances  of  the  utter  fickleness 
of  crowds  ;  but  it  is  clear  that  throughout  these  scenes  the  fury  and  obstinacy  of  the  people  are  not 
spontaneous. 


576  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

him  every  hand  was  pointed  ;  for  him  every  voice  was  raised.  For  the 
Holy,  the  Harmless,  the  Undefiled — for  Him  whom  a  thousand  Hosannas 
had  greeted  but  five  days  before— no  word  of  pity  or  of  pleading  found 
an  utterance.     "  He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men." 

Deliberately  putting  the  question  to  them,  Pilate  heard  with  scornful 
indignation  their  deliberate  choice  ;  and  then,  venting  his  bitter  disdain 
and  anger  .in  taunts,  which  did  but  irritate  them  more,  without  serving 
any  good  purpose,  "What,  then,"  he  scornful))' asked  them,  "do  ye  wish 
me  to  do  with  the  King  of  the  Jews?"  Then  first  broke  out  the  mad 
scream,  "Crucify!  crucify  Him!"  In  vain,  again  and  again,  in  the  pauses 
of  the  tumult,  Pilate  insisted,  obstinately  indeed,  but  with  more  and  more 
feebleness  of  purpose — for  none  but  a  man  more  innocent  than  Pilate, 
even  if  he  were  a  Roman  governor,  could  have  listened  without  quailing 
to  the  frantic  ravings  of  an  Oriental  mob — "Why,  what  evil  hath  He 
done?"  "I  found  no  cause  of  death  in  Him."  "I  will  chastise  Him  and 
let  Him  go."  Such  half-willed  opposition  was  wholly  unavailing.  It  only 
betrayed  to  the  Jews  the  inward  fears  of  their  Procurator,  and  practically 
made  them  masters  of  the  situation.  Again  and  again,  with  wilder  and 
wilder  vehemence,  they  rent  the  air  with  those  hideous  yells — Aipi  tovtov. 
'Jno'Xvffov  ^jjitv  Bapa/S/3ay.  Sravpcoffov,  aravpooaov — "  Away  with  this  man." 
"Loose  unto  us  Bar-Abbas."     "Crucify!  crucify!" 

For  a  moment  Pilate  seemed  utterly  to  yield  to  the  storm.  He  let 
Bar-Abbas  free ;  he  delivered  Jesus  over  to  be  scourged.  The  word  used 
for  the  scourging  (^0paytKkd)Gai^^  implies  that  it  was  done,  not  with  rods 
(virgae),  for  Pilate  had  no  lictors,  but  with  what  Horace  calls  the 
"horrible  flagellum"  of  which  the  Russian  knout  is  the  only  modern 
representative.  This  scourging  was  the  ordinary  preliminary  to  crucifixion 
and  other  forms  of  capital  punishment.^  It  was  a  punishment  so  truly 
horrible,  that  the  mind  revolts  at  it ;  and  it  has  long  been  abolished  by 
that  compassion  of  mankind  which  has  been  so  greatly  intensified,  and 
in  some  degree  even  created,  by  the  gradual  comprehension  of  Christian 
truth.  The  unhappy  sufferer  was  publicly  stripped,  was  tied  by  the  hands 
in  a  bent  position  to  a  pillar,  and  then,  on  the  tense  quivering  nerves  of 
the  naked  back,  the  blows  were  inflicted  with  leathern  thongs,  weighted 
with  jagged  edges  of    bone  and  lead  ;    sometimes  even  the  blows  fell    by 

1  Matt,  xxvii.  26.  St.  Luke,  with  a  deep  touch  of  pathos,  merely  says  that  Pilate  "gave  up  Jesus  to 
their  will,"  and  then,  as  though  he  wished  to  drop  a  veil  on  all  that  followed,  he  does  not  even  tell  us  that 
they  led  Him  away,  but  adds,  "  And  as  they  led  Him  away  "  (Luke  xxiii.  25,  26). 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  26. 


> 

;'     ^ 


is^'^^r  i  f riirllilS  P 


iIkXi  ffii iifi£MSir~ii  "^.V_ 


THE    TKN    VIRGINS.— Mntt,  xxv.   1-13. 


JESUS   AVASIIINC;    PETER'S    FEET.— l.,h,i   xiii.   1-20. 


CHRIST    BEFORE    T'TEATE.— Matl.  xxvii.   i;. 


CHRIST   BEARING   HIS   CROSS.— John  xix.  17. 


THE  CKUciFixiox.— Mark  XV.  25,  26. 


HE   IS    RISEN."— Mark  xvi.   6. 


THE    WALK    lu    hMMAt:,.-i,uL.   xmv.    i 


^^^^^^^^^^^^l^^^^^^S^K'^^^K'^^^^^ 


fi*!"^' 


u. 


VISION    OF    THE    GOLDEN    CANDLESTICK. Rev.  i.    12. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  577 

accident — sometimes,  with  terrible  barbarity,  were  purposely  struck — on 
the  face  and  eyes.  It  was  a  punishment  so  hideous  that,  under  its 
lacerating  agony,  the  victim,  generally  fainted,  often  died ;  still  more 
frequently  a  man  was  sent  away  to  perish  under  the  mortification  and 
nervous  exhaustion  which  ensued.  And  this  awful  cruelty,  on  which  we 
dare  not  dwell — this  cruelty  which  makes  the  heart  shudder  and  grow 
cold — was  followed  immediately  by  the  third  and  bitterest  derision — the 
derision  of  Christ  as   King. 

In  civilized  nations  all  is  done  that  can  be  done  to  spare  every 
needless  suffering  to  a  man  condemned  to  death  ;  but  among  the  Romans 
insult  and  derision  were  the  customary  preliminaries  to  the  last  agony. 
The  ^'  et  perciuitibus  addita  /ndibria"  ^  of  Tacitus  might  stand  for  their 
general  practice.  Such  a  custom  furnished  a  specimen  of  that  worst  and 
lowest  form  of  human  wickedness  which  delights  to  inflict  pain,  which 
feels  an  inhuman  pleasure  in  gloating  over  the  agonies  of  another,  even 
when  he  has  done  no  wrong.  The  mere  spectacle  of  agony  is  agreeable 
to  the  degraded  soul.  The  low  vile  soldiery  of  the  Pretorium — not 
Romans,  who  might  have  had  more  sense  of  the  inborn  dignity  of  the 
silent  sufferer,  but  mostly  the  mere  mercenary  scum  and  dregs  of  the 
provinces — led  Him  into  their  barrack-room,  and  there  mocked,  in  their 
savage  hatred,  the  King  whom  they  had  tortured.  It  added  keenness  to 
their  enjoyment  to  have  in  their  power  One  who  was  of  Jewish  birth,  of 
innocent  life,  of  noblest  bearing."  The  opportunity  broke  so  agreeably 
the  coarse  monotony  of  their  life,  that  they  summoned  all  of  the  cohort 
who  were  disengaged  to  witness  their  brutal  sport.  In  sight  of  these 
hardened  ruffians  they  went  through  the  whole  heartless  ceremony  of  a 
mock  coronation,  a  mock  investiture,  a  mock  homage.  Around  the  brows 
of  Jesus,  in  wanton  mimicry  of  the  Emperor's  laurel,  they  twisted  a 
thorny  wreath  of  leaves  ;  in  His  tied  and  trembling  hands  they  placed  a 
reed  for  scepter ;  from  His  torn  and  bleeding  shoulders  they  stripped  the 
white  robe  with  which  Herod  had  mocked  Him — which  must  now  have 
been  all  soaked  with  blood — and  flung  on  Him  an  old  scarlet  paludament 
— some  cast-off  war  cloak,  with  its  purple  laticlave,  from  the  Pretorlan 
wardrobe.  This,  w^ith  feigned  solemnity,  they  buckled  over  His  right 
shoulder,  with  its  glittering  fibula ;  and  then — each  with  his  derisive 
homage  of  bended  knee — each  with  his  infamous  spitting — each  w-ith  the 

1  "  They  were  insulted  even  in  the  agonies  of  death." 

2  Josephus  gives  us  several  instances  of  the   insane  wantonness  with  which  the  soldiers  delighted  to 
insult  the  detested  race  among  whom  they  were  stationed. 

37 


578  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

blow  over  the  head  from  the  reed-scepter,  which  His  bound  hands  could 
not  hold — they  kept  passing  before  Him  with  their  mock  salutation  of 
"Hail,   King  of  the  Jews!"' 

Even  now,  even  yet,  Pilate  wished,  hoped,  even  strove  to  save  Him. 
He  might  represent  this  frightful  scourging,  not  as  the  preliminary  to 
crucifixion,  but  as  an  inquiry  by  torture,  which  had  failed  to  elicit  any 
further  confession.  And  as  Jesus  came  forth — as  He  stood  beside  him, 
with  that  martyr-form  on  the  beautiful  mosaic  of  the  tribunal — the  spots 
of  blood  upon  His  green  wreath  of  torture,  the  mark  of  blows  and  spit- 
ting on  His  countenance,  the  weariness  of  His  deathful  agony  upon  the 
sleepless  eyes,  the  saguin  of  faded  scarlet,  darkened  by  the  wales  of  His 
lacerated  back,  and  dropping,  it  may  be,  its  stains  of  crimson  upon  the 
tessellated  floor — even  then,  even  so,  in  that  hour  of  His  extremest  hu- 
miliation— yet,  as  He  stood  in  the  grandeur  of  His  holy  calm  on  that 
lofty  tribunal  above  the  yelling  crowd,  there  shone  all  over  Him  so  God- 
like a  pre-eminence,  so  divine  a  nobleness,  that  Pilate  broke  forth  with 
that  involuntary  exclamation  which  has  thrilled  with  emotion  so  many 
million  hearts — 

"  Behold  the  Man  !  " 

But  his  appeal  only  woke  a  fierce  outbreak  of  the  scream,  "  Crucify  ! 
crucify!"  The  mere  sight  of  Him,  even  in  this  His  unspeakable  shame 
and  sorrow,  seemed  to  add  fresh  fuel  to  their  hate.  In  vain  the  heathen 
soldier  appeals  for  humanity  to  the  Jewish  priest  ;  no  heart  throbbed 
with  responsive  pity  ;  no  vo::e  c5  compassion  broke  that  monotonous  yell 
of  "Crucify!" — the  howling  refrain  of  their  wild  "liturgy  of  death." 
The  Roman  who  had  ohed  blood  like  water,  on  the  field  of  battle,  in 
open  massacre,  in  secret  assassination,  might  well  be  supposed  to  have  an 
icy  and  a  stony  heart  ;  but  yet  icier  and  stonier  was  the  heart  of  those 
scrupulous  hypocrites  and  worldly  priests.  "Take  ye  Him,  and  crucify 
Him,"  said  Pilate,  in  utter  disgust,  "  for  I  find  no  fault  in  Him."  What 
an  admission  from  a  Roman  judge !  "  So  far  as  I  can  see,  He  is  wholly 
innocent  ;  yet  if  you  must  crucify  Him,  take  Him  and  crucify.  I  cannot 
approve  of,  but  I  will  readily  connive  at,  your  violation  of  the  law."  But 
even  this  wretched  guilty  subterfuge  is  not  permitted  him.  Satan  will 
have  from  his  servants  the  full  tale  of  their  crimes,  and  the  sign-manual 
of  their  own  willing  assent  at  last.  What  the  Jews  want — what  the  Jews 
will  have — is  not  tacit  connivance,  but  absolute  sanction.     They  see  their 

I  John  xix.  3. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  579 

power.  They  see  that  this  blood-stained  Governor  dares  not  hold  out 
against  them  ;  they  know  that  the  Roman  statecraft  is  tolerant  of  con- 
cessions to  local  superstition.  Boldly,  therefore,  they  fling  to  the  winds 
all  question  of  a  political  ofifense,  and  with  all  their  hypocritical  pre- 
tenses calcined  by  the  heat  of  their  passion,  they  shout,  "  We  have  a 
law,  and  by  our  law  He  ought  to  die,  because  He  made  Himself  a  Son 
of  God." 

A  Son  of  God  !  The  notion  was  far  less  strange  and  repulsive  to  a 
heathen  than  to  a  Jew  ;  and  this  word,  unheard  before,  startled  Pilate 
with  the  third  omen  which  made  him  tremble  at  the  crime  into  which 
he  was  being  dragged  by  guilt  and  fear.  Once  more,  leaving  the  yelling 
multitude  without,  he  takes  Jesus  with  him  into  the  quiet  Judgment 
Hall,  and — "  Jam  pro  stid  conscientid  Christiaiius"  ^  as  Tertullian  so  finely 
observes — asks  Him  in  awe-struck  accents,  "Whence  art  Thou?"  Alas! 
it  was  too  late  to  answer  now.  Pilate  was  too  deeply  committed  to  his 
gross  cruelty  and  injustice  ;  for  him  Jesus  had  spoken  enough  already  ; 
for  the  wild  beasts  who  raged  without.  He  had  no  more  to  say.  He  did 
not  answer.  Then,  almost  angrily,  Pilate  broke  out  with  the  exclamation, 
"Dost  Thou  not  speak  even  to  me?  Dost  Thou  not  know  that  I  have 
power  to  set  Thee  free,  and  have  power  to  crucify  Thee  ? "  Power — 
how  so  ?  Was  justice  nothing,  then  ?  truth  nothing  ?  innocence  nothing  ? 
conscience  nothing?  In  the  reality  of  things  Pilate  had  no  such  power; 
even  in  the  arbitrary  sense  of  the  tyrant  it  was  an  idle  boast,  for  at  this 
very  moment  he  was  letting  "  I  dare  not "  wait  upon  "  I  would."  And 
Jesus  pitied  the  hopeless  bewilderment  of  this  man,  whom  guilt  had 
changed  from  a  ruler  into  a  slave.  Not  taunting,  not  confuting  him— 
nay,  even  extenuating  rather  than  aggravating  his  sin — Jesus  gently  an- 
swered, "  Thou  hast  no  power  against  Me  whatever,  had  it  not  been  given 
thee  from  above  ;  therefore  he  that  betrayed  Me  to  thee  hath  the  greater 
sin."  Thou  art  indeed  committing  a  great  crime — but  Judas,  Annas, 
Caiaphas,  these  priests  and  Jews,  are  more  to  blame  than  thou.  Thus, 
with  infinite  dignity,  and  yet  with  infinite  tenderness,  did  Jesus  judge  His 
judge.  In  the  very  depths  of  his  inmost  soul  Pilate  felt  the  truth  of 
the  words — silently  acknowledged  the  superiority  of  his  bound  and  lacer- 
ated victim.     All  that  remained  in  him  of  human  and  of  noble — 

"  Felt  how  awful  Goodness  is,  and  Virtue, 
In  her  shape  how  lovely  ;  felt  and  mourned 
His  fall." 
I  "Already  in  his  inmost  heart  a  Christian." 


SSo  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

All  of  his  soul  that  was  not  eaten  away  by  pride  and  cruelty  thrilled 
back  an  unwonted  echo  to  these  few  calm  words  of  the  Son  of  God. 
Jesus  had  condemned  his  sin,  and  so  far  from  being  offended,  the  judg- 
ment only  deepened  his  awe  of  this  mysterious  Being,  whose  utter 
impotence  seemed  grander  and  more  awful  than  the  loftiest  power.  From 
that  time  Pilate  was  even  yet  more  anxious  to  save  Him.  With  all  his 
conscience  in  a  tumult,  for  the  third  and  last  time  he  mounted  his 
tribunal,  and  made  one  more  desperate  effort.  He  led  Jesus  forth,  and 
looking  at  Him,  as  He  stood  silent  and  in  agony,  but  calm,  on  that 
shining  Gabbatha,  above  the  brutal  agitations  of  the  multitude,  he  said 
to  those  frantic  rioters,  as  with  a  flash  of  genuine  conviction,  "  Behold 
YOUR  King  ! "  But  to  the  Jews  it  sounded  like  shameful  scorn  to  call 
that  beaten  insulted  Sufferer  their  King.  A  darker  stream  mingled  with 
the  passions  of  the  raging,  swaying  crowd.  Among  the  shouts  of 
"  Crucify,"  ominous  threatenings  began  for  the  first  time  to  be  mingled. 
It  was  now  nine  o'clock,  and  for  nearly  three  hours'  had  they  been  rag- 
ing and  waiting  there.  The  name  of  Caesar  began  to  be  heard  in  wrath- 
ful murmurs.  "Shall  I  crucify  your  King?"  he  had  asked,  venting  the 
rage  and  soreness  of  his  heart  in  taunts  on  tJian.  "  We  have  no  king 
but  Ccrsar"  answered  the  Sadducees  and  Priests,  flinging  to  the  winds 
every  national  impulse  and  every  Messianic  hope.  "  If  thou  let  this  man 
go,"  shouted  the  mob  again  and  again,  "thou  art  not  Ccssars  friend. 
Every  one  who  tries  to  make  himself  a  king  speaketh  against  Co'sai-." 
And  at  that  dark  terrible  name  of  Ccesar,  Pilate  trembled.  It  was  a 
name  to  conjure  with.  It  mastered  him.  He  thought  of  that  terrible 
implement  of  tyranny,  the  accusation  of  laesa  tnajestas,  into  which  all 
other  charges  merged,  which  had  made  confiscation  and  torture  so 
common,  and    had    caused   blood    to    flow    like    water    in    the    streets    of 

I  As  to  the  hour  there  is  a  well-known  discrepancy  between  John  xix.  14,  "  And  it  was  .... 
about  the  sixth  hour  ;  and  he  saith  unto  the  Jews,  Behold  your  King  ;"  and  Mark  xv.  25,  "  And  it  was  the 
M/ra' hour,  and  they  crucified  Him  .  .  ."  There  are  various  suggestions  for  removing  this  difficulty, 
but  the  only  ones  worth  mentioning  are  :  (a.)  T/ial  in  the  word  "  crucified"  Si.  Mark  practically  includes  all 
the  preparations  for  the  crucifixion,  and  therefore  much  of  the  trial  :  this  is  untenable,  because  he  uses  the 
aorist,  not  the  imperfect,  (b.)  That  oiie  of  the  Evangelists  is  less  accurate  t/ian  the  other.  If  no  other  solution 
of  the  difficulty  were  simple  and  natural,  I  should  feel  no  difficulty  in  admitting  this ;  but  as  the  general, 
and  even  the  minute,  accuracy  of  the  Evangelists  seems  to  me  demonstrable  in  innumerable  cases,  it  is 
contrary  to  the  commonest  principles  of  fairness  to  insist  that  there  must  be  an  inaccuracy  when  another 
explanation  is  possible,  (c.)  That  St.  John  adopts  the  Roman  civil  reckoning  of  hours.  But(i.)  the  Romans 
had  no  such  reckoning  ;  and  (ii.)  this  will  make  Pilate's  exclamation  to  have  been  uttered  at  six  in  the 
morning,  in  which  case  the  trial  could  hardly  have  begun  at  daylight,  as  no  time  is  left  for  the  intermediate 
incidents,  (d.)  That  the  third  in  John  xix.  14  has  by  a  very  early  error  been  altered  into  sixth.  This 
appears  to  me  a  possible  solution  ;  it  is,  however,  perfectly  true  that  the  ancients,  as  a  rule,  were  much 
looser  than  we  are  in  their  notes  of  time. 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  581 

Rome.  He  thought  of  Tiberius,  the  aged  gloomy  Emperor,  then  hiding 
at  Capreae  his  ulcerous  features,  his  poisonous  suspicions,  his  sick  infamies, 
his  desperate  revenge.  At  this  very  time  he  had  been  maddened  into  a 
yet  more  sanguinary  and  misanthropic  ferocity  by  the  detected  falsity 
and  treason  of  his  only  friend  and  minister,  Sejanus,  and  it  was  to 
Sejanus  himself  that  Pilate  is  said  to  have  owed  his  position.  There 
might  be  secret  delators  in  that  very  mob.  Panic-stricken,  the  unjust 
judge,  in  obedience  to  his  own  terrors,  consciously  betrayed  the  innocent 
victim  to  the  anguish  of  death.  He  who  had  so  often  prostituted  justice, 
was  now  unable  to  achieve  the  one  act  of  justice  which  he  desired.  He 
who  had  so  often  murdered  pity,  was  now  forbidden  to  taste  the  sweet- 
ness of  a  pity  for  which  he  longed.  He  who  had  so  often  abused  author- 
ity, was  now  rendered  impotent  to  exercise  it,  for  once,  on  the  side  of 
right.  Truly  for  him,  sin  had  become  its  own  Erinnys,  and  his  pleasant 
vices  had  been  converted  into  the  instrument  of  his  punishment !  Did 
the  solemn  and  noble  words  of  the  Law  of  the  Twelve  Tables—"  Vanae 
voces  populi  71011  sunt  azidiendae,  quando  aut  noxium  crimine  absolvi,  ant 
ifmocentem  condejnnari  desidcrant" — come  across  his  memory  with  accents 
of  reproach  as  he  delivered  Bar-Abbas  and  condemned  Jesus?  It  may 
have  been  so.  At  any  rate  his  conscience  did  not  leave  him  at  ease.  At 
this,  or  some  early  period  of  the  trial,  he  went  through  the  solemn  farce 
of  trying  to  absolve  his  conscience  from  the  guilt.  He  sent  for  water  ; 
he  washed  his  hands  before  the  multitude;  he  said,  "I  am  innocent  of 
the  blood  of  this  just  person  ;  see  ye  to  it."  Did  he  think  thus  to  wash 
away  his  guilt?  He  could  wash  his  hands;  could  \\t  wash  his  heart? 
Might  he  not  far  more  truly  have  said  with  the  murderous  king  in  the 
splendid  tragedy — 

"  Can  all  old  Ocean's  waters  wash  this  blood 

Clean  from  my  hand  ?     Nay,  rather  would  this  hand 
The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine, 
Making  the  green — one  red  !" 

It  may  be  that,  as  he  thus  murdered  his  conscience,  such  a  thought 
flashed  for  one  moment  across  his  miserable  mind,  in  the  words  of  his 
native  poet- 

"  Ah  nimium  faciles  qui  tristia  crimina  caedis 
Fluminea  toUi  posse  putatis  aqua  '  "  > 

But  if  so,  the  thought  was  instantly  drowned   in  a    yell,  the  most  awful, 

I  The  custom,  though  Jewish  (Deut.  xxi.  6,  7,  "  all  the  elders    .    .    .     shall  wash  their  hands 
aad  say.  Our  hands  have  not  shed  this  blood,   neither  have    our  eyes  seen   it"),  was  also   Greek   and 
Roman. 


582  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  most  hideous,  the  most  memorable  that  History  records.  ''  His  blood 
be  on  us  atid  on  07ir  children."  Then  Pilate  finally  gave  way.  The  fatal 
'^ Ibis  ad  crucem"  was  uttered  with  reluctant  wrath.  He  delivered  Him 
unto  them,  that  He  anight  be  crucified. 

And  now  mark,  for  one  moment,  the  revenges  of  History.  Has  not 
His  blood  been  on  them,  and  on  their  children  ?  Has  it  not  fallen  most 
of  all  on  those  most  nearly  concerned  in  that  deep  tragedy  ?  Before  the 
dread  sacrifice  was  consummated,  Judas  died  in  the  horrors  of  a  loath- 
some suicide.  Caiaphas  was  deposed  the  year  following.  Herod  died  in 
infamy  and  exile.  Stripped  of  his  Procuratorship  very  shortly  after- 
wards, on  the  very  charges  he  had  tried  by  a  wicked  concession  to  avoid, 
Pilate,  wearied  out  with  misfortunes,  died  in  suicide  and  banishment, 
leaving  behind  him  an  execrated  name.  The  house  of  Annas  was  de- 
stroyed a  generation  later  by  an  infuriated  mob,  and  his  son  was  dragged 
through  the  streets,  and  scourged  and  beaten  to  his  place  of  murder. 
Some  of  those  who  shared  in  and  witnessed  the  scenes  of  that  day — and 
thousands  of  their  children — also  shared  in  and  witnessed  the  long  horrors 
of  that  siege  of  Jerusalem  which  stands  unparalleled  in  history  for  its 
unutterable  fearfulness.  "It  seems,"  says  Renan,  "as  though  the  whole 
race  had  appointed  a  rendezvous  for  extermination."  They  had  shouted, 
"We  have  no  king  but  Caesar!"  and  they  had  no  king  but  Caesar;  and 
leaving  only  for  a  time  the  fantastic  shadow  of  a  local  and  contemptible 
royalty,  Caesar  after  Caesar  outraged,  and  tyrannized,  and  pillaged,  and 
oppressed  them,  till  at  last  they  rose  in  wild  revolt  against  the  Caesar 
whom  they  had  claimed,  and  a  Caesar  slaked  in  the  blood  of  its  best  de- 
fenders the  red  ashes  of  their  burnt  and  desecrated  Temple.  They  had 
forced  the  Romans  to  crucify  their  Christ,  and  though  they  regarded 
this  punishment  with  especial  horror,  they  and  their  children  were  them- 
selves crucified  in  myriads  by  the  Romans  outside  their  own  walls,  till 
room  was  wanting  and  wood  failed,  and  the  soldiers  had  to  ransack  a  fer- 
tile inventiveness  of  cruelty  for  fresh  methods  of  inflicting  this  insulting 
form  of  death.'  They  had  given  thirty  pieces  of  silver  for  their  Saviour's 
blood,  and  they  were  themselves  sold  in  thousands  for  yet  smaller  sums. 
They  had  chosen  Bar-Abbas  in  preference  to  their  Messiah,  and  for  them 

I  The  common  notion,  that  having  bought  Christ  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver  they  were  sold  by  thirties 
for  one  piece  of  silver,  seems  to  be  solely  derived  from  a  mediaeval  forgery  called  The  Revenging  of  the 
Saviour.     Still  it  is  true  that  "the  blood  of  Jesus  shed  for  the  salvation  of  the   world   became  to  them   a 

curse So  manna  turns  to  worms,  and  the  wine  of  angels  to  vinegar  and  lees,  when  it  is  received 

into  impure  vessels  or  tasted  by  wanton  palates,  and  the  sun  himself  produces  rats  and  serpents  when  it 
r'-flects  upon  the  slime  of  Nilus."  (Jer.  Taylor.) 


JESUS  BEFORE  PILATE.  583 

there  has  been  no  Messiah  more,  while  a  murderer's  dagger  swayed  the 
last  counsels  of  their  dying  nationality.  They  had  accepted  the  guilt  of 
blood,  and  the  last  pages  of  their  history  were  glued  together  with  the 
rivers  of  their  blood,  and  that  blood  continued  to  be  shed  in  wanton 
cruelties  from  age  to  age.  They  who  will,  may  see  in  incidents  like  these 
the  mere  unmeaning  chances  of  History  ;'but  there  is  in  History  nothing 
unmeaning  to  one  who  regards  it  as  the  Voice  of  God  speaking  among 
the  destinies  of  men  ;  and  whether  a  man  sees  any  significance  or  not  in 
events  like  these,  he  must  be  blind  indeed  who  does  not  see  that  when 
the  murder  of  Christ  was  consummated,  the  ax  was  laid  at  the  root  of 
the  barren  tree  of  Jewish  nationality.  Since  that  day  Jerusalem  and  its 
environs,  with  their  "  ever-extending  miles  of  grave-stones  and  ever- 
lengthening  pavement  of  tombs  and  sepulchers,"  have  become  little  more 
than  one  vast  cemetery — an  Aceldama,  a  field  of  blood,  a  potter's  field  to 
bury  strangers  in.  Like  the  mark  of  Cain  upon  the  forehead  of  their 
race,  the  guilt  of  that  blood  has  seemed  to  cling  to  them — as  it  ever 
must  until  that  same  blood  effaceth  it.  For,  by  God's  mercy,  that  blood 
was  shed  for  them  also  who  made  it  flow  ;  the  voice  which  they  strove 
to  quench  in  death  was  uplifted  in  its  last  prayer  for  pity  on  His  mur- 
derers.     May  that  blood  be  efficacious  !  may  that  prayer  be  heard  ! ' 

I  It  is  in  the  deepest  sincerity  that  I  add  these  last  words.  Any  one  who  traces  a  spirit  of  vindictive- 
nessin  the  last  paragraph  wholly  misjudges  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  written.  This  book  may  perhaps  fall 
into  the  hands  of  Jewish  readers.  They,  of  all  others,  if  true  to  the  deepest  lessons  of  the  faith  in  which 
they  have  been  trained,  will  acknowledge  the  hand  of  God  in  History.  And  the  events  spoken  of  here 
are  not  imaginative  ;  they  are  indisputable  facts.  The  Jew  at  least  will  believe  that  in  external  conse- 
quences God  visits  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children.  Often  and  often  in  History  have  the  crimes 
of  the  guilty  seemed  to  be  visited  even  on  their  innocent  posterity.  The  apparent  iniustice  of  this  is  but  on 
the  surface.  There  is  a  fire  that  purifies,  no  less  than  a  fire  that  scathes  :  and  who  shall  say  that  the 
very  afflictions  of  Israel — afflictions,  alas  !  so  largely  caused  by  the  sin  of  Christendom — may  not  have 
been  meant  for  a  refining  of  the  pure  gold?  God's  judgments — it  may  be  the  very  sternest  and  most 
irremediable  of  them — come,  many  a  time,  in  the  guise,  not  of  affliction,  but  of  immense  earthly  pros- 
perity and  ease. 


CHAPTER    LXI. 


THE   CRUCIFIXION. 


"  Wh.n  T^'ou  «*>ai»  ca"  t'^e  friends  of  the  cross  and  its  enemies,  O  Jesu,  Son  of  God,  I  pray  Thee,  re- 
member me    — Thomas  ot  Celano. 

MILES,  expedi  crucem"  ("Go,  soldier,  get  ready 
the  cross").  In  some  such  formula  of  terrible 
import  Pilate  must  have  given  his  final  order. 
The  execution  followed  immediately  upon  the 
judgment.  The  time  required  for  the  necessary 
preparation  would  not  be  very  long,  and  during 
this  brief  pause  the  soldiers,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  see  that  the  sentence  was  carried  out,  stripped 
Jesus  of  the  scarlet  war-cloak,  now  dyed  with  the 
yet  deeper  stains  of  blood,  and  clad  Him  again 
in  His  own  garments.  When  the  cross  had 
been  prepared  they  laid  it — or  possibly  only  one 
of  the  beams  of  it — upon  His  shoulders,  and  led 
Him  to  the  place  of  punishment.  The  nearness 
of  the  great  feast,  the  myriads  who  were  present  in  Jerusalem,  made  it 
desirable  to  seize  the  opportunity  for  striking  terror  into  all  Jewish 
malefactors.  Two  were  therefore  selected  for  execution  at  the  same  time 
with  Jesus — two  brigands  and  rebels  of  the  lowest  stamp.  Their  crosses 
were  laid  upon  them,  a  maniple  of  soldiers  in  full  armor  were  marshaled 
under  the  command  of  their  centurion,  and,  amid  thousands  of  spectators, 
coldly  inquisitive  or  furiously  hostile,  the  procession  started  on  its  way. 
The  cross  was  not,  and  could  not  have  been,  the  massive  and  lofty 
structure  with  which  such  myriads  of  pictures  have  made  us  familiar. 
Crucifixion  was  among  the  Romans  a  very  common  punishment,  and  it  is 
clear  that  they  would  not  waste  any  trouble  in  constructing  the  instru- 
ment of  shame  and  torture.  It  would  undoubtedly  be  made  of  the  very 
commonest  wood  that  came  to  hand,  perhaps  olive  or  sycamore,  and 
knocked  together  in  the  very  rudest  fashion.  Still,  to  support  the  body 
of   a  man,  a  cross  would    require    to    be    of    a    certain    size    and  weight ; 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  585 

and  to  one  enfeebled  by  the  horrible  severity  of  the  previous  scourging, 
the  carrying  of  such  a  burden  would  be  an  additional  misery."  But 
Jesus  was  enfeebled  not  only  by  this  cruelty,  but  by  previous  days  of 
violent  struggle  and  agitation,  by  an  evening  of  deep  and  overwhelming 
emotion,  by  a  night  of  sleepless  anxiety  and  suffering,  by  the  mental 
agony  of  the  garden,  by  three  trials  and  three  sentences  of  death  before 
the  Jews,  by  the  long  and  exhausting  scenes  in  the  Pretorium,  by  the 
examination  before  Herod,  and  by  the  brutal  and  painful  derisions  which 
He  had  undergone,  first  at  the  hands  of  the  Sanhedrin  and  their 
servants,  then  from  Herod's  body-guard,  and  lastly  from  the  Roman 
cohort.  All  these,  superadded  to  the  sickening  lacerations  of  the 
scourging,  had  utterly  broken  down  His  physical  strength.  His  tottering 
footsteps,  if  not  His  actual  falls  under  that  fearful  load,  made  it  evident 
that  He  lacked  the  physical  strength  to  carry  it  from  the  Pretorium  to 
Golgotha.  Even  if  they  did  not  pity  His  feebleness,  the  Roman  soldiers 
would  naturally  object  to  the  consequent  hindrance  and  delay.  But  they 
found  an  easy  method  to  solve  the  difficulty.  They  had  not  proceeded 
farther  than  the  city  gate,  when  they  met  a  man  coming  from  the 
country,  who  was  known  to  the  early  Christians  as  "  Simon  of  Cyrene, 
the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus;"  and,  perhaps  on  some  hint  from  the 
accompanying  Jews  that  Simon  sympathized  with  the  teaching  of  the  Suf- 
ferer, they  impressed  him  without  the  least  scruple  into  their  odious  service.' 
The  miserable  procession  resumed  its  course,  and  though  the  apocry- 
phal traditions  of  the  Romish  Church  narrate  many  incidents  of  the  Via 
Dolorosa,   only    one    such    incident    is    recorded    in    the    Gospel    history.j 

1  Cf.  Gen.  xxii.  6  (Isa.  ix.  6).  It  is  not  certain  whether  the  condemned  carried  their  entire  cross  or 
only  a  part  of  it — ihe  fatiliuhim,  or  transom,  as  distinguished  from  the  crux.  If  the  entire  cross  was  car- 
ried, it  is  probable  that  the  two  beams  were  not  (as  in  pictures)  nailed  to  each  other,  but  simply  fastened 
together  by  a  rope,  and  carried  like  a  V-  If.  as  tradition  says,  the  hands  were  tied,  the  difficulties  of  sup- 
porting the  burden  would  be  further  enhanced. 

2  It  seems  to  have  been  a  common  thing  for  Roman  soldiers  to  impress  people  to  carry  burdens  for 
them.  The  Cyrenians  had  a  synagogue  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  ii.  lo  ;  vi.  9).  The  names  Alexander  and 
Rufus  are  too  common  to  enable  us  to  feel  any  certainty  as  to  their  identification  with  those  of  the  same 
name  mentioned  in  Acts  xix.  33  ;  i  Tim.  i.  20  ;  Rom.  xvi.  13.  The  belief  of  the  Cerinthians,  Basilidians, 
Carpocratians,  and  other  Gnostics,  that  Simon  was  crucified  for  Jesus  by  mistake  (!),  is  not  worth  notice 
here.  One  of  these  wild  distortions  was  that  Judas  was  crucified  for  Him  ;  and  another  that  it  was  a 
certain  Titian,  or  a  phantom  created  by  God  in  the  semblance  of  Jesus.  It  is  a.  curious  trace  of  the 
dissemination  of  Gnostic  and  Apocryphal  legends  in  Arabia  that  Mohammed  treats  the  actual  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  as  an  unworthy  calumny.  (Koran)  "They  slew  Him  not,  neither  crucified  Him,  but  He  was 
represented  by  one  in   His  likeness." 

3  These  form  the  subjects  of  the  stations  which  are  to  be  seen  in  ill  Romish  churches,  and  are  mainly 
derived  from  apocryphal  sources.  They  originated  among  the  Franciscans.  The  so-called  Via  Dolorosa 
does  not  seem  to  be  mentioned  earlier  than  the  fourteenth  century.  That  Jesus,  before  being  eased  of  His 
burden,  was  scourged  and  goaded  onward  is  but  too  sadly  probable. 


586  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

St.  Luke  tells  us  that  among  the  vast  multitude  of  people  who  followed  Jesus 
were  many  women.  From  the  men  in  that  moving  crowd  He  does  not 
appear  to  have  received  one  word  of  pity  or  of  sympathy.  SotJte  there 
must  surely  have  been  who  had  seen  His  miracles,  who  had  heard  His 
words  ;  some  of  those  who  had  been  almost,  if  not  utterly,  convinced  of 
His  IMessiahship,  as  they  hung  upon  His  lips  while  He  uttered  His 
great  discourses  in  the  Temple  ;  some  of  the  eager  crowd  who  had  ac- 
companied Him  from  Bethany  five  days  before  with  shouted  hosannas 
and  waving  palms.  Yet  if  so,  a  faithless  timidity  or  a  deep  misgiving — 
perhaps  even  a  boundless  sorrow — kept  them  dumb.  But  these  women, 
more  quick  to  pity,  less  susceptible  to  controlling  influences,  could  not 
and  would  not  conceal  the  grief  and  amazement  with  which  this  spec- 
tacle filled  them.  They  beat  upon  their  breasts  and  rent  the  air  with 
their  lamentations,  till  Jesus  Himself  hushed  their  shrill  cries  with  words 
of  solemn  warning.  Turning  to  them — which  He  could  not  have  done 
had  He  still  been  staggering  under  the  burden  of  His  cross — He  said  to 
them,  "  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep  not  for  me  ;  but  for  yourselves 
weep,  and  for  your  children.  For  lo  !  days  are  coming  in  which  they 
shall  say,  Blessed  are  the  barren,  and  the  wombs  which  bare  not,  and  the 
breasts  which  gave  not  suck.  Then  shall  they  begin  to  say  to  the 
mountains,  Fall  on  us,  and  to  the  hills.  Cover  us  ;  for  if  they  do  these 
things  in  the  green  tree,  what  shall  be  done  in  the  drj'?"  Theirs  was 
but  an  emotional  outburst  of  womanly  tenderness,  which  they  could  not 
repress  as  they  saw  the  great  Prophet  of  mankind  in  His  hour  of  shame 
and  weakness,  with  the  herald  proclaiming  before  Him  the  crimes  with 
which  He  was  charged,  and  the  Roman  soldiers  carrying  the  title  of 
derision,  and  Simon  bending  under  the  weight  of  the  wood  to  which  He 
was  to  be  nailed.  But  He  warned  them  that,  if  this  were  all  which  they 
saw  in  the  passing  spectacle,  far  bitterer  causes  of  woe  awaited  them,  and 
their  children,  and  their  race.  Many  of  them,  and  the  majority  of  their 
children,  would  live  to  see  such  rivers  of  bloodshed,  such  complications 
of  agony,  as  the  world  had  never  known  before — days  which  would  seem 
to  overpass  the  capacities  of  human  suffering,  and  would  ipake  men  seek 
to  hide  themselves,  if  it  might  be,  under  the  very  roots  of  the  hill  on 
which  their  city  stood.'     The  fig-tree  of  their  nation's  life  was  still  green  : 

I  Hos.  ix.  12 — 16  ;  X.  8  ;  Isa.  ii.  10  ;  Rev.  vi.  i6.  These  words  of  Christ  met  with  a  painfully  literal  illus- 
tration when  hundreds  of  the  unhappy  Jews  at  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  hid  themselves  in  the  darkest  and 
vilest  subterranean  recesses,  and  when,  besides  those  who  were  hunted  out,  no  less  than  2,000  were  killed 
by  being  buried  under  the  ruins  of  their  hiding-places. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  587 

if  such  deeds  of  darkness  were  possible  now,  what  should  be  done  when 
that  tree  was  withered  and  blasted,  and  ready  for  the  burning  ? " — if  in 
the  days  of  hope  and  decency  they  could  execrate  their  blameless  De- 
liverer, what  would  happen  in  the  days  of  blasphemy  and  madness  and 
despair?  If,  under  the  full  light  of  day,  Priests  and  Scribes  could  crucify 
the  Innocent,  what  would  be  done  in  the  midnight  orgies  and  blood- 
stained bacchanalia  of  Zealots  and  Murderers  ?  This  was  a  day  of  crime  ; 
that  would  be  a  day  when  Crime  had  become  her  own  avenging  fury. — 
The  solemn  warning,  the  last  sermon  of  Christ  on  earth,  was  meant  pri- 
marily for  those  who  heard  it  ;  but,  like  all  the  words  of  Christ,  it  has 
deeper  and  wider  meaning  for  all  mankind.  Those  words  warn  every 
child  of  man  that  the  day  of  careless  pleasure  and  blasphemous  disbelief 
will  be  followed  by  the  crack  of  doom ;  they  warn  each  human  being 
who  lives  in  pleasure  on  the  earth,  and  eats,  and  drinks,  and  is  drunken, 
that  though  the  patience  of  God  waits,  and  His  silence  is  unbroken,  yet 
the  days  shall  come  when  He  shall  speak  in  thunder,  and  His  wrath 
shall  burn  like  fire. 

And  so  with  this  sole  sad  episode  they  came  to  the  fatal  place,  called 
Golgotha,  or,  in  its  Latin  form,  Calvary — that  is,  "a  skull."  Why  it  was 
so  called  is  not  known.  It  may  conceivably  have  been  a  well-known 
place  of  execution ;  or  possibly  the  name  may  imply  a  bare,  rounded, 
scalp-like  elevation.  It  is  constantly  called  the  "  hill  of  Golgotha,"  or  of 
Calvary  ;  but  the  Gospels  merely  call  it  "  a  place,"  and  not  a  hill.  Re- 
specting its  site  volumes  have  been  written,  but  nothing  is  known.  The 
data  for  anything  approaching  to  certainty  are  wholly  wanting  ;  and,  in 
all  probability,  the  actual  spot  lies  buried  and  obliterated  under  the 
mountainous  rubbish-heaps  of  the  ten-times  taken  city.  The  ruo-o-ed  and 
precipitous  mountain  represented  in  sacred  pictures  is  as  purely  imaginary 
as  the  skull  of  Adam,  which  is  often  painted  lying  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross,  or  as  any  other  of  the  myriads  of  legends  which  have  gathered 
round  this  most  stupendous  and  moving  scene  in  the  world's  history. 
All  that  we  know  of  Golgotha,  all  that  we  shall  ever  know,  all  that  God 
Tvilled  to  be    known,  is    that  it  was  without  the  city  gate.      The  religion 

I  The  exact  meaning  of  this  proverbial  expression  is  not  certain.  It  is  often  explained  to  mean,  "  If, 
in  the  fulfillment  of  God's  purposes,  I  the  Holy  and  the  Innocent  must  suffer  thus — if  the  green  tree  be 
thus  blasted — how  shall  the  dry  tree  of  a  wicked  life,  with  its  abominable  branches,  be  consumed  in 
the  uttermost  burning?"  (Cf.  Prov.  xi.  31;  Ezek.  xx.  47;  xxi.  4;  and  especially  i  Peter  iv.  17.) 
The  difficulty  of  understanding  the  words  was  early  felt,  and  we  find  an  absurd  allusion  to  them  in 
the  Revenging  cf  the  Saviour,  where  Titus  exclaims,  "  They  hung  our  Lord  on  a  green  tree  .  .  .  le( 
us  hang  them  on  a  dry  tree." 


588  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

of  Christ  is  spiritual  ;  it  needs  no  relic;  it  is  independent  of  Holy  Places  ; 
it  says  to  each  of  its  children,  not  "  Lo,  here!"  and  "lo,  there!"  but 
"  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 

Utterly  brutal  and  revolting  as  was  the  punishment  of  crucifixion, 
which  has  now  for  fifteen  hundred  years  been  abolished  by  the  common 
pity  and  abhorrence  of  mankind,  there  was  one  custom  in  Judea,  and 
one  custom  occasionally  practiced  by  the  Romans,  which  reveal  some 
touch  of  passing  humanity.  The  latter  consisted  in  giving  to  the  sufferer 
a  blow  under  the  arm-pit,  which,  without  causing  death,  yet  hastened 
its  approach. 

Of  this  I  need  not  speak,  because,  for  whatever  reason,  it  was 
not  practiced  on  this  occasion.  The  former,  which  seems  to  have  been 
due  to  the  milder  nature  of  Judaism,  and  which  was  derived  from  a 
happy  piece  of  Rabbinic  exegesis  on  Prov.  xxxi.  6,  consisted  in  giving 
to  the  condemned,  immediately  before  his  execution,  a  draught  of  wine 
medicated  with  some  powerful  opiate.  It  had  been  the  custom  of  wealthy 
ladies  in  Jerusalem  to  provide  this  stupefying  potion  at  their  own  expense, 
and  they  did  so  quite  irrespectively  of  their  sympathy  for  any  individual 
criminal.  It  was  probably  taken  freely  by  the  two  malefactors,  but  when 
they  offered  it  to  Jesus  He  would  not  take  it.  The  refusal  was  an  act 
of  sublimest  heroism.  The  effect  of  the  draught  was  to  dull  the  nerves, 
to  cloud  the  intellect,  to  provide  an  anaesthetic  against  some  part,  at 
least,  of  the  lingering  agonies  of  that  dreadful  death.  But  He,  whom 
some  modern  skeptics  have  been  base  enough  to  accuse  of  feminine 
feebleness  and  cowardly  despair,  preferred  rather  "to  look  Death  in  the 
face  " — to  meet  the  king  of  terrors  without  striving  to  deaden  the  force 
of  one  agonizing  anticipation,  or  to  still  the  throbbing  of  one  lacer- 
ated ner\'e. 

The  three  crosses  were  laid  on  the  ground — that  of  Jesus,  which  was 
doubtless  taller  than  the  other  two,  being  placed  in  bitter  scorn  in  the 
midst.  Perhaps  the  cross-beam  was  now  nailed  to  the  upright,  and 
certainly  the  title,  which  had  either  been  borne  by  Jesus  fastened  round  . 
His  neck,  or  carried  by  one  of  the  soldiers  in  front  of  Him,  was  now  | 
nailed  to  the  summit  of  His  cross.  Then  He  was  stripped  of  His 
clothes,  and  then  followed  the  most  awful  moment  of  all.  He  was  laid 
down  upon  the  implement  of  torture.  His  arms  were  stretched  along 
the  cross-beams  ;  and  at  the  center  of  the  open  palms,  the  point  of  a 
huge  iron  nail  was  placed,  which,  by  the    blow    of    a    mallet,  was    driven 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  589 

home  into  the  wood."  Then  through  either  foot  separately,  or  possibly 
through  both  together  as  they  were  placed  one  over  the  other,  another 
huge  nail  tore  its  way  through  the  quivering  flesh.  Whether  the  sufferer 
was  also  bound  to  the  cross  we  do  not  know  ;  but,  to  prevent  the  hands 
and  feet  being  torn  away  by  the  weight  of  the  body,  which  could  not 
"  rest  upon  nothing  but  four  great  wounds,"  there  was,  about  the  center 
of  the  cross,  a  wooden  projection  strong  enough  to  support,  at  least  in 
part,  a  human  body  which  soon  became  a  weight  of  agony. 

It  was  probably  at  this  moment  of  inconceivable  horror  that  the 
voice  of  the  Son  of  Man,  was  heard  uplifted,  not  in  a  cry  of  natural 
agony  at  that  fearful  torture,  but  calmly  praying  in  Divine  compassion 
for  His  brutal  and  pitiless  murderers — ay,  and  for  all  who  in  their  sin- 
ful   ignorance   crucify    Him    afresh    for    ever^ — "  Father,    forgive   them, 

FOR   THEY    KNOW    NOT    WHAT    THEY    DO." 

And  then  the  accursed  tree^ — with  its  living  human  burden  hanging 
upon  it  in  helpless  agony,  and  suffering  fresh  tortures  as  every  move- 
ment irritated  the  fresh  rents  in  hands  and  feet — was  slowly  heaved  up 
by  strong  arms,  and  the  end  of  it  fixed  firmly  in  a  hole  dug  deep  in 
the  ground  for  that  purpose.  The  feet  were  but  a  little  raised  above 
the  earth.  The  victim  was  in  full  reach  of  every  hand  that  might  choose 
to  strike,  in  close  proximity  to  every  gesture  of  insult  and  hatred.  He 
might  hang  for  hours  to  be  abused,  insulted,  even  tortured  by  the  ever- 
moving  multitude  who,  with  that  desire  to  see  what  is  horrible  which 
always  characterizes  the  coarsest  hearts,  had  thronged  to  gaze  upon  a 
sight  which  should  rather  have  made  them  weep  tears  of  blood. 

And  there,  in  tortures  which  grew  ever  more  insupportable,  ever 
more  maddening  as  time  flowed  on,  the  unhappy  victims  might  linger  in 
pain  so  cruelly  intolerable,  that  often  they  were  driven  to  entreat  and 
implore  the  spectators,  or  the  executioners,  for  dear  pity's  sake,  to  put 
an  end  to  anguish  too  awful  for  man  to  bear — conscious  to  the  last,  and 

1  I  write  thus  because  the  familiarity  of  oft-repeated  words  prevents  us  from  realizing  what  crucifixion 
really  was,  and  because  it  seems  well  that  we  should  realize  this.  The  hideous  custom  was  probably  copied 
by  the  Romans  from  the  Phenicians.  The  Egyptians  simply  bound  the  hands  and  feet,  leaving  the  suf- 
ferer to  die  mainly  of  starvation. 

2  The  thought  is  more  than  once  expressed  by  Mr.  Browning  (.4  Death  in  the  Desert): — 

"  Is  not  His  love,  at  issue  still  with  sin, 
Closed  with,  and  cast,  and  conquered,  crucified 
Visibly  when  a  wrong  is  done  on  earth  ?" 

3  Now  that  this  "  tree  of  cursing  and  shame  sits  upon  the  scepters,  and  is  engraved  and  signed  on 
the  foreheads  of  kings  "  (Jer.  Taylor),  we  can  hardly  imagine  the  disgust  and  horror  with  which  it  was 
once  regarded  when  it  had  no  associations  but  those  "  of  pain,  of  guilt,  and  of  ignominy  "  (Gibbon,  ii.  153). 


590  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

often,  with  tears  of  abject  misery,  beseeching  from  their  enemies  the 
priceless  boon  of  death." 

For  indeed  a  death  by  crucifixion  seems  to  include  all  that  pain  and 
death  can  have  of  horrible  and  ghastly — dizziness,  cramp,  thirst,  starva- 
tion, sleeplessness,  traumatic  fever,  tetanus,  publicity  of  shame,  long  con- 
tinuance of  torment,  horror  of  anticipation,  mortification  of  untended 
wounds — all  intensified  just  up  to  the  point  at  which  they  can  be  endured 
at  all,  but  all  stopping  just  short  of  the  point  which  would  give  to  the 
sufferer  the  relief  of  unconsciousness.  The  unnatural  position  made  every 
movement  painful  ;  the  lacerated  veins  and  crushed  tendons  throbbed 
with  incessant  anguish  ;  the  wounds,  inflamed  by  exposure,  gradually  gan- 
grened ;  the  arteries — especially  of  the  head — became  swollen  and  op- 
pressed with  surcharged  blood  ;  and  while  each  variety  of  misery  went  on 
gradually  increasing,  there  was  added  to  them  the  intolerable  pang  of  a 
burning  and  raging  thirst  ;  and  all  these  physical  complications  caused 
an  internal  excitement  and  anxiety,  which  made  the  prospect  of  death 
itself — of  death,  the  awful  unknown  enemy,  at  whose  approach  man 
usually  shudders  most — bear  the  aspect  of  a  delicious  and  exquisite 
release. 

Such  was  the  death  to  which  Christ  was  doomed  ;  and  though  for 
Him  it  was  happily  shortened  by  all  that  He  had  previously  endured, 
yet  He  hung  from  soon  after  noon  until  nearly  sunset,  before  "  He  gave 
up  His  soul  to  death." 

When  the  cross  was  uplifted,  the  leading  Jews,  for  the  first  time, 
prominently  noticed  the  deadly  insult  in  which  Pilate  had  vented  His 
indignation.  Before,  in  their  blind  rage,  they  had  imagined  that  the 
manner  of  His  crucifixion  was  an  insult  aimed  at  Jestcs ;  but  now  that 
they  saw  Him  hanging  between  the  two  robbers,  on  a  cross  yet  loftier, 
it  suddenly  flashed  upon  them  that  it  was  a  public  scorn  inflicted 
upon  them. 

For  on  the  white  wooden  tablet  smeared  with  gypsum,  which  was 
to  be  seen  so  conspicuously  over  the  head  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  ran,  in 
black  letters,  an  inscription  in  the  three  civilized  languages  of  the  ancient 
world — the  three  languages  of  which  one  at  least  was  certain  to  be  known 
by  every  single  man  in  that  assembled  multitude — in  the  ofificial  Latin,  in 
the  current  Greek,  in  the  vernacular  Aramaic — informing  all  that  this  Man 

I  And  hence  there  are  many  ancient  instances  of  men  having  been  first  strangled,  or  ruarly  killed,  and 
then  crucified  ;  and  of  men  who  bought  by  large  bribes  this  mournful  but  merciful  privilege. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  59I 

who  was  thus  enduring  a  shameful,  servile  death — this  Man  thus  crucified 
between  two  sicarii  in  the  sight  of  the  world,'  was 

"  THE    KING    OF     THE   JEWS."  ^ 

To  Him  who  was  crucified  the  poor  malice  seemed  to  have  in  it 
nothing  of  derision.  Even  on  His  cross  He  reigned;  even  there  He 
seemed  divinely  elevated  above  the  priests  who  had  brought  about  His 
death,  and  the  coarse,  idle,  vulgar  multitude  who  had  flocked  to  feed 
their  greedy  eyes  upon  His  sufferings.  The  malice  was  quite  impotent 
against  One  whose  spiritual  and  moral  nobleness  struck  awe  into  dying 
malefactors  and  heathen  executioners,  even  in  the  lowest  abyss  of  His 
physical  degradation.  With  the  passionate  ill-humor  of  the  Roman  gov- 
ernor there  probably  blended  a  vein  of  seriousness.  While  he  was 
delighted  to  revenge  himself  on  his  detested  subjects  by  an  act  of  public 
insolence,  he  probably  meant,  or  half  meant,  to  imply  that  this  was,  in 
one  sense,  the  King  of  the  Jews — the  greatest,  the  noblest,  the  truest  of 
His  race,  whom  therefore  His  race  had  crucified.  The  King  was  not 
unworthy  of  His  kingdom,  but  the  kingdom  of  the  King.  There  was 
something  loftier  even  than  royalty  in  the  glazing  eyes  which  never 
ceased  to  look  with  sorrow  on  the  City  of  Righteousness,  which  had 
now  become  a  city  of  murderers.  The  Jews  felt  the  intensity  of  the 
scorn  with  which  Pilate  had  treated  them.  It  so  completely  poisoned 
their  hour  of  triumph,  that  they  sent  their  chief  priests  in  deputation, 
begging  the  Governor  to  alter  the  obnoxious  title.  "  Write  not,"  they 
said,  "  •  The  King  of  the  Jews,'  but  that  '  He  said,  I  am  the  King  of 
the  Jews.'"  But  Pilate's  courage,  which  had  oozed  away  so  rapidly  at 
the  name  of  Caesar,  had  now  revived.  He  was  glad  in  any  and  every 
way  to  browbeat  and  thwart  the  men  whose  seditious  clamor  had  forced 
him  in  the  morning  to  act  against  his  will.  Few  men  had  the  power  of 
giving  expression  to  a  sovereign  contempt  more  effectually  than  the 
Romans.  Without  deigning  any  justification  of  what  he  had  done,  Pilate 
summarily  dismissed  these  solemn  heirarchs  with  the  curt  and  contempt- 
uous reply,  "  What  I  have  written,   I  have  written."  ^ 

1  Mark  xv.  28  (Isa.  liii.  12)  is  probably  spurious.  St.  Mark,  writing  for  the  Romans,  never  once  quotes 
from  the  Old  Testament. 

2  We  cannot  tell  which  of  the  Evangelists  gives  the  exact  \\\\c  :  it  is,  however,  possible  that  the  longest 
one  is  accurately  given  by  St.  John  (xix.  ig),  and  that  it  was  the  one  in  Aramaic,  which  would  require 
least  room.  Professor  Westcott  remarks  that,  as  given  by  St.  Luke,  it  "seems  like  the  scornful  turn  of  the 
Latin  title." 

3  Such  conduct  on  the  part  of  Pilate  would  probably  have  been  called  "  mythical,"  &c.,  if  we  did  not 
find  Philo  attributing  to  him  just  the  same  "  malicious  intention  to  vex  the  people." 


592  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

In  order  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  rescue,  even  at  the  last 
moment — since  instances  had  been  known  of  men  taken  from  the  cross 
and  restored  to  life ' — a  quaternion  of  soldiers  with  their  centurion  were 
left  on  the  ground  to  guard  the  cross.  The  clothes  of  the  victims  always 
fell  as  perquisites  to  the  men  who  had  to  perform  so  weary  and  dis- 
agreeable an  office.  Little  dreaming  how  exactly  they  were  fulfilling  the 
mystic  intimations  of  olden  Jewish  prophecy,  they  proceeded,  therefore,  to 
divide  between  them  the  garments  of  Jesus.  The  tallith  they  tore  into 
four  parts,  probably  ripping  it  down  the  seams  ;  but  the  cctdneth,  or 
under-garment,  was  formed  of  one  continuous  woven  texture,  and  to  tear 
would  have  been  to  spoil  it ;  they  therefore  contented  themselves  with 
letting  it  become  the  property  of  any  one  of  the  four  to  whom  it  should 
fall  by  lot.  When  this  had  been  decided,  they  sat  down  and  watched 
Him  till  the  end — beguiling  the  weary  lingering  hours  by  eating  and 
drinking,  and  gibing,  and  playing  dice. 

It  was  a  scene  of  tumult.  The  great  body  of  the  people  seem  to 
have  stood  silently  at  gaze  ;  but  some  few  of  them  as  they  passed  by 
the  cross — perhaps  some  of  the  many  false  witnesses  and  other  conspira- 
tors of  the  previous  night — mocked  at  Jesus  with  insulting  noises  and 
furious  taunts,  especially  bidding  Him  come  down  from  the  cross  and 
save  Himself,  since  He  could  destroy  the  Temple  and  build  it  in  three 
days.  And  the  chief  priests,  and  scribes,  and  elders,  less  awe-struck,  less 
compassionate  than  the  mass  of  the  people,  were  not  ashamed  to  dis- 
grace their  gray-haired  dignity  and  lofty  reputation  by  adding  their  heart- 
less reproaches  to  those  of  the  evil  few.  Unrestrained  by  the  noble 
patience  of  the  Sufferer,  unsated  by  the  accomplishment  of  their  wicked 
vengeance,  unmoved  by  the  sight  of  helpless  anguish  and  the  look  of 
eyes  that  began  to  glaze  in  death,  they  congratulated  one  another^  under 
His  cross  with  scornful  insolence — "  He  saved  others,  Himself  He  cannot 
save."  "  Let  this  Christ,  this  King  of  Israel,  descend  now  from  the  cross, 
that  we  may  see  and  believe."  No  wonder  then  that  the  ignorant  soldiers 
took  their  share  of  mockery  with  these  shameless  and  unvenerable  hier- 
archs :  no  wonder  that,  at  their  midday  meal,  they  pledged  in  mock 
hilarity  the   Dying    Man,    cruelly   holding    up    towards    His    burning    lips 

1  At  the  request  of  Josephus,  who  prostrated  himself  at  the  feet  of  Titus,  three  men  who  had  been 
crucified  were  taken  down  alive,  and  every  possible  effort  made  to  save  them  ;  but  in  spite  of  "  the  most 
careful  tendance,"  two  of  the  three  died.  A  similar  instance  is  narrated  of  Sandokes,  and  of  the  Convul- 
sionnaires  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XV. 

2  Mark  xv.  31. 


THE    DESCENT    FROM   THE    CROSS. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  593 

their  cups  of  sour  wine,  and  echoing  the  Jewish  taunts  against  the  weak- 
ness of  the  King  whose  throne  was  a  cross,-  whose  crown  was  thorns. 
Nay,  even  the  poor  wretches  who  were  crucified  with  Him  caught  the 
hideous  infection  ;  comrades,  perhaps,  of  the  respited  Bar-Abbas — heirs  of 
the  rebelhous  fury  of  a  Judas  the  Gaulonite— trained  to  recognize  no 
Messiah  but  a  Messiah  of  the  sword,  they  reproachfully  bade  Him,  if 
His  claims  were  true,  to  save  Himself  and  them.'  So  all  the  voices 
about  Him  rang  with  blasphemy  and  spite,  and  in  that  long  slow  agony 
His  dying  ear  caught  no  accent  of  gratitude,  of  pity,  or  of  love.  Base- 
ness, falsehood,  savagery,  stupidity — such  were  the  characteristics  of  the 
world  which  thrust  itself  into  hideous  prominence  before  the  Saviour's 
last  consciousness — such  the  muddy  and  miserable  stream  that  rolled 
under  the  cross  before  His  dying  eyes. 

But  amid  this  chorus  of  infamy  Jesus  spoke  not.  He  could  have 
spoken.  The  pains  of  crucifixion  did  not  confuse  the  intellect,  or  paralyze 
the  powers  of  speech.  We  read  of  crucified  men  who,  for  hours  together 
upon  the  cross,  vented  their  sorrow,  their  rage,  or  their  despair  in  the 
manner  that  best  accorded  with  their  character  ;  of  some  who  raved  and 
cursed,  and  spat  at  their  enemies ;  of  others  who  protested  to  the  last 
against  the  iniquity  of  their  sentence  ;  of  others  who  implored  compas- 
sion with  abject  entreaties  ;  of  one  even  who,  from  the  cross,  as  from  a 
tribunal,  harangued  the  multitude  of  his  countrymen,  and  upbraided  them 
with  their  wickedness  and  vice.  But,  except  to  bless  and  to  encourage, 
and  to  add  to  the  happiness  and  hope  of  others,  Jesus  spoke  not.  So 
far  as  the  malice  of  the  passers-by,  and  of  priests  and  Sanhedrists,  and 
soldiers,  and  of  these  poor  robbers  who  suffered  with  Him,  was  concerned 
— as  before,  during  the  trial,  so  now  upon  the  cross — He  maintained  un- 
broken  His  kingly  silence. 

But  that  silence,  joined  to  His  patient  majesty  and  the  divine  holi- 
ness and  innocence  which  radiated  from  Him  like  a  halo,  was  more  elo- 
quent than  any  words.  It  told  earliest  on  one  of  the  crucified  robbers. 
At  first  this  '■'bonus  latro"  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  seems  to  have 
faintly  joined  in  the  reproaches  uttered  by  his  fellow-sinner ;  but  when 
those  reproaches  merged  into  deeper  blasphemy,  he  spoke  out  his  inmost 
thought.     It  is  probable  that 'he  had  met  Jesus  before,  and    heard    Him, 

I  In  this,  as  in  many  other  places,  I  have  contented  myself  with  silently  showing  that  the  supposed 
contradictions  between  the  narratives  of  the  Gospels  do  not  necessarily  exist.      There  is  no  contradiction' 
in  the  text,  yet  I  have  only  translated  correctly  (Matt,  xxvii.  44)  the   reproach  in   which  the  robbers  at  drst 
joined  and  (Luke  xxiii.  39)  x.)\^  furious  reviling  oi  which  only  the  unrepentant  one  was  guilty. 
38 


594  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

and  perhaps  been  one  of  those  thousands  who  had  seen  His  miracles. 
There  is  indeed  no  authority  for  the  legend  which  assigns  to  him  the 
name  of  Dysmas,  or  for  the  beautiful  story  of  his  having  saved  the  life 
of  the  Virgin  and  her  Child  during  their  flight  into  Egypt.  But  on  the 
plains  of  Gennesareth,  perhaps  from  some  robber's  cave  in  the  wild 
ravines  of  the  Valley  of  the  Doves,  he  may  well  have  approached  His 
presence — he  may  well  have  been  one  of  those  publicans  and  sinners  who 
drew  near  to  Him  for  to  hear  Him.  And  the  words  of  Jesus  had  found 
some  room  in  the  good  ground  of  his  heart ;  they  had  not  all  fallen  upon 
stony  places.  Even  at  this  hour  of  shame  and  death,  when  he  was  suffer- 
ing the  just  consequence  of  his  past  evil  deeds,  faith  triumphed.  As  a 
flame  sometimes  leaps  up  among  dying  embers,  so  amid  the  white  ashes 
of  a  sinful  life  which  lay  so  thick  upon  his  heart,  the  flame  of  love  to- 
wards his  God  and  his  Saviour  was  not  quite  quenched.  Under  the 
hellish  outcries  which  had  broken  loose  around  the  cross  of  Jesus,  there 
had  lain  a  deep  misgiving.  Half  of  them  seem  to  have  been  instigated 
by  doubt  and  fear.  Even  in  the  self-congratulations  of  the  priests  we 
catch  an  undertone  of  dread.  Suppose  that  even  now  some  imposing 
miracle  should  be  wrought  ?  Suppose  that  even  now  that  martyr-form 
should  burst  indeed  into  Messianic  splendor,  and  the  King,  who  seemed 
to  be  in  the  slow  misery  of  death,  should  suddenly  with  a  great  voice 
summon  His  legions  of  angels,  and  springing  from  His  cross  upon  the 
rolling  clouds  of  heaven,  come  in  flaming  fire  to  take  vengeance  upon 
His  enemies?  And  the  air  seemed  to  be  full  of  signs.  There  was  a 
gloom  of  gathering  darkness  in  the  sky,  a  thrill  and  tremor  in  the  solid 
earth,  a  haunting  presence  as  of  ghostly  visitants  who  chilled  the  heart 
and  hovered  in  awful  witness  above  that  scene.  The  dying  robber  had 
joined  at  first  in  the  half-taunting,  half-despairing  appeal  to  a  defeat  and 
weakness  which  contradicted  all  that  he  had  hoped  ;  but  now  this  defeat 
seemed  to  be  greater  than  victory,  and  this  weakness  more  irresistible 
than  strength. 

As  he  looked,  the  faith  in  his  heart  dawned  more  and  more  into 
the  perfect  day.  He  had  long  ceased  to  utter  any  reproachful  words; 
he  now  rebuked  his  comrade's  blasphemies.  Ought  not  the  suffering 
innocence  of  Him  who  hung  between  them,  to  shame  into  silence 
their  just  punishment  and  flagrant  guilt  ?  And  so,  turning  his  head  to 
Jesus,  he  uttered  the  intense  appeal,  "  O  Jesus,  remember  me  when 
Thou  comcst  in  Thy  kingdom."      Then    He,  who    had    been    mute  amid 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  595 

invectives,  spake  at  once  in  surpassing  answer  to  that  humble  prayer, 
"Verily,  I  say  to  thee,  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  Me  in  paradise." 

Though  none  spoke  to  comfort  Jesus — though  deep  grief,  and  terror, 
and  amazement  kept  them  dumb — yet  there  were  hearts  amid  the  crowd 
that  beat  in  sympathy  with  the  awful  Sufferer.  At  a  distance  stood  a 
number  of  women  looking  on,  and  perhaps,  even  at  that  dread  hour, 
expecting  His  immediate  deliverance.  Many  of  these  were  women  who 
had  ministered  to  Him  in  Galilee,  and  had  come  from  thence  in  the 
great  band  of  Galilean  pilgrims.  Conspicuous  among  this  heart-stricken 
group  were  His  mother  Mary,  Mary  of  Magdala,  Mary  the  wife  of 
Clopas,  mother  of  James  and  Joses,  and  Salome  the  wife  of  Zebedee. 
Some  of  them,  as  the  hours  advanced,  stole  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
cross,  and  at  length  the  filming  eye  of  the  Saviour  fell  on  His  own 
mother  Mary,  as,  with  the  sword  piercing  through  and  through  her 
heart,  she  stood  with  the  disciple  whom  He  loved.  His  mother  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  much  with  Him  during  His  ministry.  It  may  be 
that  the  duties  and  cares  of  a  humble  home  rendered  it  impossible.  At 
any  rate,  the  only  occasions  on  which  we  hear  of  her  are  occasions  when 
she  is  with  His  brethren,  and  is  joined  with  them  in  endeavoring 
to  influence,  apart  from  His  own  purposes  and  authority.  His  Messi- 
anic course. 

But  although  at  the  very  beginning  of  His  ministry  He  had 
gently  shown  her  that  the  earthly  and  filial  relation  was  now  to  be  trans- 
cended by  one  far  more  lofty  and  divine,  and  though  this  end  of  all  her 
high  hopes  must  have  tried  her  faith  with  an  overwhelming  and  unspeak- 
able sorrow,  yet  she  was  true  to  Him  in  this  supreme  hour  of  His 
humiliation,  and  would  have  done  for  Him  all  that  a  mother's  sympathy 
and  love  can  do.  Nor  had  He  for  a  moment  forgotten  her  who  had 
bent  over  His  infant  slumbers,  and  with  whom  He  had  shared  those 
thirty  years  in  the  cottage  at  Nazareth.  Tenderly  and  sadly  He  thouo-ht 
of  the  future  that  awaited  her  during  the  remainder  of  her  life  on  earth, 
troubled  as  they  must  be  by  the  tumults  and  persecutions  of  a  struggling 
and  nascent  faith.  After  His  resurrection  her  lot  was  wholly  cast  among 
His  Apostles,  and  the  Apostle  whom  He  loved  the  most,  the  Apostle 
who  was  nearest  to  Him  in  heart  and  life,  seemed  the  fittest  to  take 
care  of  her.  To  him,  therefore — to  John  whom  He  had  loved  more 
than  His  brethren — to  John  whose  head  had  leaned  upon  His  breast  at 
the  Last  Supper,   He  consigned  her  as  a  sacred  charge.      "Woman,"  He 


596  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

said  to  her,  in  fewest  words,  but  in  words  which  breathed  the  uttermost 
spirit  of  tenderness,  "behold  thy  son;"  and  then  to  St.  John,  "Behold 
THY  MOTHER."  He  could  make  no  gesture  with  those  pierced  hands,  but 
He  could  bend  His  head.  They  Hstened  in  speechless  emotion,  but 
from  that  hour — perhaps  from  that  very  moment — leading  her  away  from 
a  spectacle  which  did  but  torture  her  soul  with  unavailing  agony,  that 
disciple  took  her  to  his  own  home.' 

It  was  now  noon,  and  at  the  Holy  City  the  sunshine  should  have 
been  burning  over  that  scene  of  horror  with  a  power  such  as  it  has  in 
the  full  depth  of  an  English  summer-time.  But  instead  of  this,  the  face 
of  the  heavens  was  black,  and  the  noonday  sun  was  "turned  into  dark- 
ness," on  "this  great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord."  It  could  have  been 
no  darkness  of  any  natural  eclipse,  for  the  Paschal  moon  was  at  the 
full ;  but  it  was  one  of  those  "  signs  from  heaven  "  for  which,  during  the 
ministry  of  Jesus,  the  Pharisees  had  so  often  clamored  in  vain.  The 
early  Fathers  appealed  to  Pagan  authorities — the  historian  Phallus,  the 
chronicler  Phlegon — for  such  a  darkness ;  but  we  have  no  means  of  test- 
ino-  the  accuracy  of  these  references,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the 
darkness  was  a  local  gloom  which  hung  densely  over  the  guilty  city  and 
its  immediate  neighborhood.  But  whatever  it  was,  it  clearly  filled  the 
minds  of  all  who  beheld  it  with  yet  deeper  misgiving.  The  taunts  and 
jeers  of  the  Jewish  priests  and  the  heathen  soldiers  were  evidently  con- 
fined to  the  earlier  hours  of  the  crucifixion.  Its  later  stages  seem  to 
have  thrilled  alike  the  guilty  and  the  innocent  with  emotions  of  dread 
and  horror.  Of  the  incidents  of  those  last  three  hours  we  are  told 
nothincT,  and  that  awful  obscuration  of  the  noonday  sun  may  well  have 
overawed  every  heart  into  an  inaction  respecting  which  there  was  nothing 
to  relate. 

What  Jesus  suffered  then  for  us  men  and  our  salvation  we  can- 
not know,  for  during  those  three  hours  He  hung  upon  His  cross  in 
silence  and  darkness  ;  or,  if  He  spoke,  there  were  none  there  to  record 
His  words.  But  towards  the  close  of  that  time  His  anguish  culminated, 
and — emptied  to  the  very  uttermost  of  that  glory  which  He  had  since 
the  world  began — drinking  to  the  very  deepest  dregs  the  cup  of  humilia- 
tion and  bitterness — enduring,  not  only  to  have  taken  upon  Him  the  form 
of  a  servant,  but  also  to  suffer  the  last  infamy  which  human  hatred  could 

I  John  xix.  27.  Perhaps  this  furnishes  us  with  a  fresh  proof  that  St.  John  was  more  closely  connected 
with  Jerusalem  than  the  other  Apostles,  which  would  account  for  his  fuller  knowledge  and  record  of  the 
Judean  ministry. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  '  597 

impose  on  servile  helplessness — He  uttered  that  mysterious  cry,  of  which 
the  full  significance  will  never  be  fathomed  by  man — 

Eli,  Eli,  lama  sabachthani  ?"'  ("  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me?") 

In  those  words,  quoting  the  Psalm  in  which  the  early  Fathers  rightly 
saw  a  far-off  prophecy  of  the  whole  passion  of  Christ,  He  borrowed  from| 
David's  utter  agong  the  expression  of  His  own.  In  that  hour  He  was 
alone.  Sinking  from  depth  to  depth  of  unfathomable  suffering,  until,  at 
the  close  approach  of  a  death  which — because  He  was  God,  and  yet  had 
been  made  man — was  more  awful  to  Him  than  it  could  ever  be  to  any  of 
the  sons  of  men,  it  seemed  as  if  even  His  Divine  Humanity  could 
endure  no  more. 

Doubtless  the.  voice  of  the  Sufferer — though  uttered  loudly  in  that 
paroxysm  of  an  emotion  which,  in  another,  would  almost  have  touched 
the  verge  of  despair — was  yet  rendered  more  uncertain  and  indistinct 
from  the  condition  of  exhaustion  in  which  He  hung  ;  and  so,  amid  the 
darkness,  and  confused  noise,  and  dull  footsteps  of  the  moving  multitude, 
there  were  some  who  did  not  hear  what  He  had  said.  They  had  caught 
only  the  first  syllable,  and  said  to  one  another  that  He  had  called  on 
the  name  of  Elijah.  The  readiness  with  which  they  seized  this  false 
impression  is  another  proof  of  the  wild  state  of  excitement  and  terror — 
the  involuntary  dread  of  something  great,  and  unforeseen,  and  terrible — to 
which  they  had  been  reduced  from  their  former  savage  insolence.  For 
Elijah,  the  great  prophet  of  the  Old  Covenant,  was  inextricably  mingled 
with  all  the  Jewish  expectations  of  a  Messiah,  and  these  expectations 
were  full  of  wrath.  The  coming  of  Elijah  would  be  the  comino-  of  a 
day  of  fire,  in  which  the  sun  should  be  turned  into  blackness  and  the 
moon  into  blood,  and  the  powers  of  heaven  should  be  shaken.  Already 
the  noonday  sun  was  shrouded  in  unnatural  eclipse :  might  not  some 
awful  form  at  any  moment  rend  the  heavens  and  come  down,  touch  the 
mountains  and  they  should  smoke  ?  The  vague  anticipation  of  conscious 
guilt  was  unfulfilled.  Not  such  as  yet  was  to  be  the  method  of  God's 
workings.  His  messages  to  man  for  many  ages  more  were  not  to  be  in 
the  thunder  and  earthquake,  not  in  rushing  wind  or  roaring  flame,  but 
in  the  "  still    small  voice  "  speaking  always  amid  the  apparent  silences  of 

I  This  utterance  on  the  cross  is  the  only  one  recorded  by  the  two  first  Evangelists,  and  is  recorded 
iy  thim  alone.  St.  Mark  preserves  the  more  purely  Aramaic  form  Elci.  The  fact  that  thus  in  His  last 
moments  Jesus  speaks  in  Aramaic,  would  seem  to  prove  that  this  had  been  the  ordinary  language  of 
His  life. 


598  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Time  in  whispers  intelligible  to  man's  heart,  but  in  which  there  is  neither 
speech  nor  language,  though  the  voice  is  heard. 

But  now  the  end  was  very  rapidly  approaching,  and  Jesus,  who  had 
been  hanging  for  nearly  six  hours  upon  the  cross,  was  suffering  from 
that  torment  of  thirst  which  is  most  difificult  of  all  for  the  human  frame 
to  bear — perhaps  the  most  unmitigated  of  the  many  separate  sources  of 
anguish  which  were  combined  in  this  worst  form  of  death.  No  doubt 
this  burning  thirst  was  aggravated  by  seeing  the  Roman  soldiers  drink- 
ing so  near  the  cross ;  and  happily  for  mankind,  Jesus  had  never 
sanctioned  the  unnatural  affectation  of  stoic  impassibility.  And  so  He 
uttered  the  one  sole  word  of  physical  suffering  which  had  been  wrung 
from  Him  by  all  the  hours  in  which  He  had  endured  the  extreme  of 
all  that  man  can  inflict.  He  cried  aloud,  "  I  thirst."  It  is  probable  that 
a  few  hours  before,  the  cry  would  have  only  provoked  a  roar  of  frantic 
mockery  ;  but  now  the  lookers-on  were  reduced  by  awe  to  a  readier 
humanity.  Near  the  cross  there  lay  on  the  ground  the  large  earthen 
vessel  containing  the  posca,  which  was  the  ordinary  drink  of  the  Roman 
soldiers.  The  mouth  of  it  was  filled  with  a  piece  of  sponge,  which 
served  as  a  cork.  Instantly  some  one — we  know  not  whether  he  was 
friend  or  enemy,  or  merely  one  who  was  there  out  of  idle  curiosity — took 
out  the  sponge  and  dipped  it  in  the  posca"^  to  give  it  to  Jesus.  But  low 
as  was  the  elevation  of  the  cross,  the  head  of  the  Sufferer,  as  it  rested 
on  the  horizontal  beam  of  the  accursed  tree,  was  just  beyond  the  man's 
reach  ;  and  therefore  he  put  the  sponge  at  the  end  of  a  stalk  of  hyssop — 
about  a  foot  long — and  held  it  up  to  the  parched  and  dying  lips.'  Even 
this  simple  act  of  pity,  which  Jesus  did  not  refuse,  seemed  to  jar  upon 
the  condition  of  nervous  excitement  with  which  some  of  the  multitude 
were  looking  on.  "  Let  be,"  they  said  to  the  man,  "  let  us  see  whether 
Elias  is  coming  to  save  Him."  The  man  did  not  desist  from  his  act  of 
mercy,  but  when  it  was  done  he  too  seems  to  have  echoed  those  uneasy 
words.  5 

But  Elias  came  not,  nor  human  comforter,  nor  angel  deliverer. 
It  was  the  will  of  God,  it  was  the  will  of  the  Son  of  God,  that  He 
should  be  "  perfected  through  sufferings  ;  "  ■*  that — for  the  eternal  example 

1  Mark  xv.  36.     The  hyssop  is  either  a  species  of  marjoram,  or  the  caper-plant,  of  which  the  stem  is 
woody. 

2  Matt,  xxvii.  48  ;  John  xix.  29. 

3  Mark  xv.  36. 

4  Heb.  V.  7,  8  ;  ii.  10  ;  Phil.  ii.  8,  9. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  599 

of  all  His  children  as  long  as  the  world  should  last — He  should  "  endure 
unto  the  end." 

And  now  the  end  was  come.  Once  more,  in  the  words  of  the  sweet 
Psalmist  of  Israel, "  but  adding  to  them  that  title  of  trustful  love  which, 
through  Him,  is  permitted  to  the  use  of  all  mankind,  "Father,"  He 
said,  "  INTO  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  Then  with  one  more  oreat 
effort  He  uttered  the  last  cry — the  one  victorious  word  TsriXsaTai,  "  It  is 
FINISHED."  It  may  be  that  that  great  cry  ruptured  some  of  the  vessels 
of  His  heart ;  for  no  sooner  had  it  been  uttered  than  He  bowed  His 
head  upon  His  breast,  and  yielded  His  life,  "a  ransom  for  many" — a 
willing  sacrifice  to  His  Heavenly  Father.'  "Finished  was  His  holy  life; 
with  His  life  His  struggle,  with  His  struggle  His  work,  with  His  work 
the  redemption,  with  the  redemption  the  foundation  of  the  new  world." 
At  that  moment  the  vail  of  the  Temple  was  rent  in  twain  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom.3  An  earthquake  shook  the  earth  and  split  the  rocks,  and 
as  it  rolled  away  from  their  places  the  great  stones  which  closed  and 
covered  the  cavern  sepulchers  of  the  Jews,  so  it  seemed  to  the  imao-ina- 
tions  of  many  to  have  disimprisoned  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  and  to  have 
filled  the  air  with  ghostly  visitants,  who  after  Christ  had  risen  appeared 
to  linger  in  the  Holy  City."  These  circumstances  of  amazement,  joined 
to  all  they  had  observed  in  the  bearing  of  the  Crucified,  cowed  even  the 
cruel  and  gay  indifference  of  the  Roman  soldiers.  On  the  centurion, 
who  was  in  command  of  them,  the  whole  scene  had  exercised  a  yet 
deeper  influence.  As  he  stood  opposite  to  the  cross  and  saw  the  Saviour 
die,  he  glorified  God,  and  exclaimed,  "This  Man  was  in  truth  rio-hteous"— 
nay,  more,  "This  Man  was  a  Son  of  God."  Even  the  multitude,  utterly 
sobered  from  their  furious  excitement  and  frantic  rage,  beo-an  to  be 
weighed  down  with  a  guilty  consciousness  that  the  scene  which  they  had 
witnessed     had     in     it     something     more     awful    than     they    could    have 

1  Ps.  xxxi.  5.     Ci.  Acts  vii.  59;   i  Pet.  ii.  23. 

2  There  may  be  something  intentional  in  the  fact  that  in  describing  the  death  of  Christ  the  Evangelists 
do  not  use  the  neuter  verb  "  died,"  but  the  phrases,  "  breathed  forth  His  life  "  (Mark  xv.  37  •  Luke  xxiii 
46);  " gave  up  His  spirit"  (John  xix.  30);  as  though  they  imply  with  St.  Augustine  that  He  gave  up  His 
life — i.e.,  "  because  He  so  willed  to  do  " — Isa.  liii.  7.  Christ's  perfectly  voluntary  resignation  of  His  own 
life  is  distinctly  asserted  in  John  x.  18. 

3  Heb.  vi.  19;  ix.  3  ;  x.  19,  20.  The  vail  intended  must  be  the  parocluth,  or  inner  vail.  The  Gospel 
to  the  Hebrews  says  that  at  the  same  moment  a  vast  beam  over  the  Temple  lintel  was  shattered  (Jer  ad 
Matt,  xxvii.  51).  It  is  far  from  improbable  that  the  Jewish  legends  of  strange  portents  which  happened 
"  forty  years"  (as  they  say  in  their  usual  loose  and  vague  manner)  before  the  destruction  of  the  Temple, 
are  in  reality  the  echoes  and  reminiscences  of  those  which  in  fact  took  place  at  the  death  of  Christ. 

4  Only  in  some  such  way  as  this  can  I  account  for  the  singular  and  wholly  isolated  allusion  of  Matt. 
x.xvii.  52,  53. 


6oo  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

conceived,  and  as  they  returned  to  Jerusalem  they  wailed,  and  beat  upon 
their  breasts.  Well  might  they  do  so  I  This  was  the  last  drop  in  a  full 
cup  of  wickedness :  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  their  city,  and 
name,  and  race. 

And  in  truth  that  scene  was  more  awful  than  they,  or  even  we,  can 
know.  The  secular  historian,  be  he  ever  so  skeptical,  cannot  fail  to  see 
in  it  the  central  point  of  the  world's  history.  Whether  he  be  a  believer 
in  Christ  or  not,  he  cannot  refuse  to  admit  that  this  new  religion  grew 
from  the  smallest  of  all  seeds  to  be  a  mighty  tree,  so  that  the  birds  of 
the  air  took  refuge  in  its  branches ;  that  it  was  the  little  stone  cut  with- 
out hands  which  dashed  into  pieces  the  colossal  image  of  heathen  great- 
ness, and  grew  till  it  became  a  great  mountain  and  filled  the  earth. 
Alike  to  the  infidel  and  to  the  believer  the  crucifixion  is  the  boundary 
instant  between  ancient  and  modern  days.  Morally  and  physically,  no 
less  than  spiritually,  the  Faith  of  Christ  was  the  Palingenesia  of  the  world. 
It  came  like  the  dawn  of  a  new  spring  to  nations  "effete  with  the 
drunkenness  of  crime."  The  struggle  was  long  and  hard,  but  from  the 
hour  when  Christ  died  began  the  death-knell  to  every  Satanic  tyranny 
and  ever)-  tolerated  abomination.  From  that  hour  Holiness  became  the 
universal  ideal  of  all  who  name  the  name  of  Christ  as  their  Lord,  and 
the  attainment  of  that  ideal  the  common  heritage  of  souls  in  which  His 
Spirit  dwells. 

The  effects,  then,  of  the  work  of  Christ  are  even  to  the  unbeliever 
indisputable  and  historical.  It  expelled  cruelty ;  it  curbed  passion  ;  it 
branded  suicide ;  it  punished  and  repressed  an  execrable  infanticide ;  it 
drove  the  shameless  impurities  of  heathendom  into  a  congenial  darkness. 
There  was  hardly  a  class  whose  wrongs  it  did  not  remedy.  It  rescued 
the  gladiator ;  it  freed  the  slave ;  it  protected  the  captive  ;  it  nursed  the 
sick  ;  it  sheltered  the  orphan ;  it  elevated  the  woman ;  it  shrouded  as 
with  a  halo  of  sacred  innocence  the  tender  years  of  the  child.  In  every 
region  of  life  its  ameliorating  influence  was  felt  It  changed  pity  from  a 
vice  into  a  virtue.  It  elevated  poverty  from  a  curse  into  a  beatitude.  It 
ennobled  labor  from  a  vulgarity  into  a  dignity  and  a  duty.  It  sanctified 
marriage  from  little  more  than  a  burdensome  convention  into  little  less 
than  a  blessed  sacrament.  It  revealed  for  the  first  time  the  angelic 
beauty-  of  a  Purit)-  of  which  men  had  despaired,  and  of  a  Meekness  at 
which  they  had  utterly  scoffed  It  created  the  very  conception  of  charity, 
and    broadened    the    limits  of    its  obligation  from    the  narrow  circle  of  a 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  6oi 

neighborhood  to  the  widest  horizons  of  the  race.  And  while  it  thus 
evolved  the  idea  of  Humanity  as  a  common  brotherhood,  even  where  its 
tidings  were  not  believed — all  over  the  world,  wherever  its  tidings  were 
believed,  it  cleansed  the  life  and  elevated  the  soul  of  each  individual 
man.  And  in  all  lands  where  it  has  molded  the  characters  of  its  true 
believers,  it  has  created  hearts  so  pure,  and  lives  so  peaceful,  and  homes 
so  sweet,  that  it  might  seem  as  though  those  angels  who  had  heralded 
its  advent  had  also  whispered  to  every  depressed  artd  despairing  sufferer 
among  the  sons  of  men,  "  Though  ye  have  lien  among  the  pots,  yet  shall 
ye  be  as  the  wings  of  a  dove,  that  is  covered  with  silver  wings,  and  her 
feathers  like  gold." 

Others,  if  they  can  and  will,  may  see  in  such  a  work  as  this  no 
Divine  Providence  ;  they  may  think  it  philosophical  enlightenment  to 
hold  that  Christianity  and  Christendom  are  adequately  accounted  for  by 
the  idle  dreams  of  a  noble  self-deceiver,  and  the  passionate  hallucinations 
of  a  recovered  demoniac.  We  persecute  them  not,  we  denounce  them 
not,  we  judge  them  not  ;  but  we  say  that,  unless  all  life  be  a  hollow, 
there  could  have  been  no  such  miserable  origin  to  the  sole  religion  of 
the  world,  which  holds  the  perfect  balance  between  philosophy  and 
popularity,  between  religion  and  morals,  between  meek  submissiveness  and 
the  pride  of  freedom,  between  the  ideal  and  the  real,  between  the  inward 
and  the  outward,  between  modest  stillness  and  heroic  energy,  nay,  be- 
tween the  tenderest  conserv'atism  and  the  boldest  plans  of  world-wide 
reformation.  The  witness  of  History  to  Christ  is  a  witness  which  has 
been  given  with  irresistible  cogency  ;  and  it  has  been  so  given  to  none 
but  Him. 

But  while  even  the  unbeliever  must  see  what  the  life  and  death  of 
Jesus  have  effected  in  the  world,  to  the  believer  that  life  and  death  are 
something  deeper  still  ;  to  him  they  are  nothing  less  than  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  He  sees  in  the  cross  of  Christ  something  which  far 
transcends  its  historical  significance.  He  sees  in  it  the  fulfillment  of  all 
prophecy  as  well  as  the  consummation  of  all  historj-  ;  he  sees  in  it  the 
explanation  of  the  mystery  of  birth,  and  the  conquest  over  the  mystery 
of  the  grave.  In  that  life  he  finds  a  perfect  example  ;  in  that  death  an 
infinite  redemption.  As  he  contemplates  the  Incarnation  and  the  Cruci- 
fixion, he  no  longer  feels  that  God  is  far  awaj',  and  that  this  earth  is 
but  a  disregarded  speck  in  the  infinite  azure,  and  he  himself  but  an  in- 
significant atom  chance-thrown  amid    the  thousand  million  living  souls  of 


602  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

an  innumerable  race,  but  he  exclaims  in  faith  and  hope  and  love,  "  Be- 
hold, the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men  ;  yea.  He  will  be  their  God,  and 
they  shall  be  His  people."  "Ye  are  the  temple  of  the  living  God  ;  as  God 
hath  said,  I  will  dwell  in  them,  and  walk  in  them." ' 

The  sun  was  westering  as  the  darkness  rolled  away  from  the  com- 
pleted sacrifice.  They  who  had  not  thought  it  a  pollution  to  inaugurate 
their  feast  by  the  murder  of  their  Messiah,  were  seriously  alarmed  lest 
the  sanctity  of  the  following  day — which  began  at  sunset — should  be 
compromised  by  the  hanging  of  the  corpses  on  the  cross.  And,  horrible 
to  relate,  the  crucified  often  lived  for  many  hours — nay,  even  for  two 
days — in  their  torture.  The  Jews  therefore  begged  Pilate  that  their  legs 
might  be  broken,  and  their  bodies  taken  down.  This  cruri  fragiiun, 
as  it  was  called,  consisted  in  striking  the  legs  of  the  sufferers  with  a 
heavy  mallet,  a  violence  which  seemed  always  to  have  hastened,  if  it  did 
not  instantly  cause  their  death.  Nor  would  the  Jews  be  the  only  per- 
sons who  would  be  anxious  to  hasten  the  end,  by  giving  the  deadly 
blow.  Until  life  was  extinct,  the  soldiers  appointed  to  guard  the  execu- 
tion dared  not  leave  the  ground.  The  wish,  therefore,  was  readily 
granted.  The  soldiers  broke  the  legs  of  the  two  malefactors  first,"  and 
then,  coming  to  Jesus,  found  that  the  great  cry  had  been  indeed  His 
last,  and  that  He  was  dead  already.  They  did  not,  therefore,  break  His 
legs,  and  thus  unwittingly  preserve  the  symbolism  of  that  Paschal  lamb, 
of  which  He  was  the  antitype,  and  of  which  it  had  been  commanded 
that  "a  bone  of  it  shall  not  be  broken." ^  And  yet,  as  He  might  be 
only  in  a  syncope — as  instances  had  been  known  in  which  men  apparently 
dead  had  been  taken  down  from  the  cross  and  resuscitated — and  as  the 
lives  of  the  soldiers  would  have  had  to  answer  for  any  irregularity,  one 
of  them,  in  order  to  make  death  certain,  drove  the  broad  head  of  his 
hasta  into  His  side.  The  wound,  as  it  was  meant  to  do,  pierced  the 
region  of  the  heart,  and  "forthwith,"  says  St.  John,  with  an  emphatic 
appeal  to  the  truthfulness  of  his  eye-witness  (an  appeal  which  would  be 
singularly  and  impossibly  blasphemous   if    the  narrative  were    the  forgery 

1  Ezek.  xxxvii.  26  ;  2  Cor.  vi.  16. 

2  If  we  must  look  for  any  reason,  we  may  suppose  that  two  soldiers  broke  the  legs  of  a  malefactor  on 
either  side  first  ;  or  possibly  that  the  cross  of  Jesus  being  a  little  loftier  may  have  rendered  it  less  easy  to 
give  the  blow  at  once. 

3  Exod.  xii.  46  (St.  John  also  refers  to  Zech.  xii.  10);  Rev.  i.  7.  It  is  a  striking  circumstance  that  the 
body  of  the  Paschal  lamb  was  literally  crucified  on  two  transverse  spits.  I  witnessed  the  Samaritan  Pass- 
over on  the  summit  of  Mount  Gerizim  in  1870,  and  the  bodies  of  the  seven  lambs  as  they  were  prepared 
for  roasting  looked  exactly  as  though  they  were  laid  on  seven  crosses. 


THE  CRUCIFIXION.  603 

which  so  much  elaborate  modern  criticism  has  wholly  failed  to  prove 
that  it  is),  "  forthwith  came  there  out  blood  and  water."  Whether  the 
water  was  due  to  some  abnormal  pathological  conditions  caused  by  the 
dreadful  complication  of  the  Saviour's  sufferings — or  whether  it  rather 
means  that  the  pericardium  had  been  rent  by  the  spearpoint,  and  that 
those  who  took  down  the  body  observed  some  drops  of  its  serum 
mingled  with  the  blood — in  either  case  that  lance-thrust  was  sufhcient  to 
hush  all  the  heretical  assertions  that  Jesus  had  only  seemed  to  die ;  and 
as  it  assured  the  soldiers,  so  should  it  assure  all  who  have  doubted,  that 
He,  who  on  the  third  day  rose  again,  had  in  truth  been  crucified,  dead., 
and  buried,  and  that  His  soul  had  passed  into  the  unseen  world. 


CHAPTER    LXII. 

THE    RESURRECTION. 
"  We  must  say  a  little  of  Christ  as  God." — Tertuluan. 

f 

T  THE  moment  when  Christ  died,  nothing  could 
have  seemed  more  abjectly  weak,  more  pitifully 
hopeless,  more  absolutely  doomed  to  scorn,  and 
extinction,  and  despair,  than  the  Church  which 
He  had  founded.  It  numbered  but  a  hand- 
ful of  weak  followers,  of  whom  the  boldest  had 
denied  his  Lord  with  blasphemy,  and  the  most 
devoted  had  forsaken  Him  and  fled.  They 
were  poor,  they  were  ignorant,  they  were  help- 
less. They  could  not  claim  a  single  synagogue 
or  a  single  sword.  If  they  spoke  their  own 
language,  it  bewrayed  them  by  its  mongrel  dialect ;  if  they 
spoke  the  current  Greek,  it  was  despised  as  a  miserable 
patois.  So  feeble  were  they  and  insignificant,  that  it  would 
have  looked  like  foolish  partiality  to  prophesy  for  them 
the  limited  existence  of  a  Galilean  sect.  How  was  it  that  these  dull 
and  ignorant  men,  with  their  cross  of  wood,  triumphed  over  the  deadly 
fascinations  of  sensual  mythologies,  conquered  kings  and  their  armies, 
and  overcame  the  world  ? 

What  was  it  that  thus  caused  strength  to  be  made  perfect  out  of 
abject  weakness?  There  is  one,  and  one  on\y  possible  answer — the  res- 
urrection from  the  dead.  All  this  vast  revolution  was  due  to  the  power 
of  Christ's  resurrection.  "  If  we  measure  what  seemed  to  be  the  hope- 
less ignominy  of  the  catastrophe  by  which  His  work  was  ended,  and  the 
Divine  prerogatives  which  are  claimed  for  Him,  not  in  spite  of,  but  in 
consequence  of  that  suffering  and  shante,  we  shall  feel  the  utter  hopeless- 
ness of  reconciling  the  fact,  and  that  triumphant  deduction  from  it,  with- 
out some  intervening  fact  as  certain  as  Christ's  passion,  and  glorious 
enough  to  transfigure  its  sorrow." ' 

I  Westcott,  Gospel  ff  the  Resurrection.     He  adds  :  "  If  Christ  did  not  rise,  we  have  not  only  to  explain 
how  the  belief  in  His  resurrection  came  to  be  received  without  any  previous  hopes  which  could  lead  to  its 


THE  RESURRECTION.  605 

The  sun  was  now  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  and  the  Sabbath  day 
was  near.  And  "  that  Sabbath  day  was  a  high  day,"  a  Sabbath  of 
peculiar  splendor  and  solemnity,  because  it  was  at  once  a  Sabbath  and  a 
Passover.'  The  Jews  had  taken  every  precaution  to  prevent  the  cere- 
monial pollution  of  a  day  so  sacred,  and  were  anxious  that  immediately 
after  the  death  of  the  victims  had  been  secured,  their  bodies  should  be 
taken  from  the  cross.  About  the  sepulture  they  did  not  trouble  them- 
selves, leaving  it  to  the  chance  good  ofifices  of  friends  and  relatives  to 
huddle  the  malefactors  into  their  nameless  graves.  The  dead  body  of 
Jesus  was  left  hanging  till  the  last,  because  a  person  who  could  not 
easily  be  slighted  had  gone  to  obtain  leave  from  Pilate  to  dispose  of  it 
as  he  wished. 

This  was  Joseph  of  Arimathsea,'  a  rich  man,  of  high  character  and 
blameless  life,  and  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Sanhedrin.  Although 
timidity  of  disposition,  or  weakness  of  faith,  had  hitherto  prevented  him 
from  openly  declaring  his  belief  in  Jesus,  yet  he  had  abstained  from 
sharing  in  the  vote  of  the  Sanhedrin,  or  countenancing  their  crime.  And 
now  sorrow  and  indignation  inspired  him  with  courage.  Since  it  was 
too  late  to  declare  his  sympathy  for  Jesus  as  a  living  Prophet,  he  would 
at  least  give  a  sign  of  his  devotion  to  Him  as  the  martyred  victim  of  a 
wicked  conspiracy.  Flinging  secrecy  and  caution  to  the  winds,  he  no 
sooner  saw  that  the  cross  on  Golgotha  now  bore  a  lifeless  burden,  than 
he  went  to  Pilate  on  the  very  evening  of  the  crucifixion,  and  begged 
that  the  dead  body  might  be  given  him.  Although  the  Romans  left 
their  crucified  slaves  to  be  devoured  by  dogs  and  ravens,  Pilate  had  no 
difficulty  in  sanctioning  the  more  humane  and  reverent  custom  of  the 
Jews,  which  required,  even  in  extreme  cases,  the  burial  of  the  dead.^  He 
was,  however,  amazed  at  the  speediness  with  which  death  had  supervened, 
and  sending  for  the  centurion,  asked  whether  it  had  taken  place  suf- 
ficiently long    to    distinguish    it  from  a  faint  or  swoon. ■•     On  ascertaining 

reception,  but  also  how  it  came  to  be  received  with  that  intensity  of  personal  conviction  which  could  invest 
the  life  and  person  of  Christ  with  attributes  never  before  assigned  to  any  one,  and  that  by  Jews  who  had 
been  reared  in  the  strictest  monotheism." 

1  John  xix.  31  ;  Deut.  xxi.  22,  23  ;  Lev.  xxiii.  7. 

2  Arimathsa,  or  Rama,  is  a  place  of  uncertain  site  ;  it  may  be  Rama  in  Benjamin  (Matt.  ii.  i8),  or 
Ramathaim  in  Ephraim  (l  Sam.  i.  i),  but  certainly  is  not  Ramleh  in  Dan. 

3  The  request  of  Joseph  was  not,  however,  without  danger,  and  in  later  martyrdoms  such  a  requesi 
cost  men  their  lives,  as  was  the  case  with  the  martyr  Porphyrios.  Pilate  might,  perhaps,  have  exacted  a 
bribe  (cf.  Acts  xxiv.  26),  but  apparently  did  not  do  so,  because  the  care  of  the  Jews  for  burial  was  well 
known,  and  any  violation  of  this  usage  would  have  been  resented. 

4  Such  seems  to  be  the  significance  of  Mark  xv.  44. 


6o6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

that  such  was  the  fact,  he  at  once  assigned  the  body,  doubtless  with 
some  real  satisfaction,  to  the  care  of  this  "  honorable  councilor."  With- 
out wasting  a  moment,  Joseph  purchased  a  long  piece  of  fine  linen,'  and 
took  the  body  from  its  cross.  Meanwhile  the  force  of  his  example  had 
helped  to  waken  a  kindred  feeling-  in  the  soul  of  the  candid  but  fearful 
Nicodemus.  If,  as  seems  extremely  probable,  he  be  identical  with  the 
Nakdimon  Ben  Gorion  of  the  Talmud,  he  was  a  man  of  enormous 
wealth  ;  and  however  much  he  had  held  back  during  the  life  of  Jesus, 
now,  on  the  evening  of  His  death,  his  heart  was  filled  with  a  gush  of 
compassion  and  remorse,  and  he  nurried  to  His  cross  and  burial  with  an 
offering  of  truly  royal  munificence.  The  faith  which  had  once  required 
the  curtain  of  darkness,  can  now  venture  at  least  into  the  light  of  sun- 
set, and  brightened  finally  into  noonday  confidence.  Thanks  to  this  glow 
of  kindling  sorrow  and  compassion  in  the  hearts  of  these  two  noble  and 
wealthy  disciples.  He  who  died  as  a  malefactor,  was  buried  as  a  king. 
"  He  made  His  grave  with  the  wicked,  and  with  the  rich  in  His  death." 
The  fine  linen  (shidoti)  which  Joseph  had  purchased  was  richly  spread 
with  the  hundred  litras  of  myrrh  and  perfumed  aloe-wood  which  Nico- 
demus had  brought,  and  the  lacerated  body — whose  divinely-human  spirit 
was  now  in  the  calm  of  its  Sabbath  rest  in  the  Paradise  of  God — was 
thus  carried  to  its  loved  and  peaceful  grave. 

Close  by  the  place  of  crucifixion — if  not  an  actual  part  of  it — was  a 
garden  belonging  to  Joseph  of  Arimathaea,  and  in  its  inclosure  he  had 
caused  a  new  tomb  to  be  hewn  for  himself  out  of  the  solid  rock,  that 
he  might  be  buried  in  the  near  precincts  of  the  Holy  City.^  The  tomb 
had  never  been  used,  but,  in  spite  of  the  awful  sacredness  which  the 
Jews  attached  to  their  rock-hewn  sepulchers,  and  the  sensitive  scrupulosity 
with  which  they  shrank  from  all  contact  with  a  corpse,  Joseph  never 
hesitated  to  give  up  for  the  body  of  Jesus  the  last  home  which  he  had 
designed  for  his  own  use.  But  the  preparations  had  to  be  hurried, 
because  when  the  sun  had  set  the  Sabbath  would  have  begun.  All  that 
they  could  do,  therefore,  was  to  wash  the  corpse,  to  lay  it  amid  the ; 
spices,  to  wrap  the  head  in  a  white  napkin,  to  roll  the  fine  linen  round  L 
and  round  the  wounded  limbs,  and  to  lay  the  body  reverently  in  the 
rocky  niche.     Then,  with    the    united    toil    of   several  men,  they  rolled  a 

1  Another  clear  indication,  even  in  the  Synoptists,  that  this  Friday  was  not  the  Passover.  The  sindSn 
was  probably  of  white  linen,  such  as  that  in  which  Gamaliel  II.  ordered  himself  to  be  buried,  in  order  to 
discourage  the  extravagant  burial  garments  of  the  Jews. 

2  The  circuit  of  Jerusalem  is  one  great  graveyard,  and  such  tombs  may  be  seen  in  Judea  by  hundreds. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  607 

gdlal,  or  great  stone,  to  the  horizontal  aperture  ;  and  scarcely  had  they 
accomplished  this  when,  as  the  sun  sank  behind  the  hills  of  Jerusalem, 
the  new  Sabbath  dawned." 

Mary  of  Magdala,  and  Mary  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses,  had 
seated  themselves  in  the  garden  to  mark  well  the  place  of  sepulture,  and 
other  Galilean  women  had  also  noticed  the  spot,  and  had  hurried  home 
to  prepare  fresh  spices  and  ointments  before  the  Sabbath  began,  that 
,they  might  hasten  back  early  on  the  morning  of  Sunday,  and  complete 
that  embalming  of  the  body  which  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  had  only 
hastily  begun.  They  spent  in  quiet  that  miserable  Sabbath,  which,  for 
the  broken  hearts  of  all  who  loved  Jesus,  was  a  Sabbath  of  anguish  and 
despair. 

But  the  enemies  of  Christ  were  not  so  inactive.  The  awful  misgiv- 
ing of  guilty  consciences  was  not  removed  even  by  His  death  upon  the 
cross.  They  recalled,  with  dreadful  reminiscence,  the  rumored  prophecies 
of  His  resurrection — the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  which  He  had  said 
would  alone  be  given  them " — the  great  utterance  about  the  destroyed 
Temple,  which  He  would  in  three  days  raise  up  ;  and  these  intimations, 
which  were  but  dim  to  a  crushed  and  wavering  faith,  were  read,  like  fiery 
letters  upon  the  wall,  by  the  illuminating  glare  of  an  uneasy  guilt.  Pre- 
tending, therefore,  to  be  afraid  lest  His  body  should  be  stolen  by  His 
disciples  for  purposes  of  imposture,  they  begged  that,  until  the  third  day, 
the  tomb  might  be  securely  guarded.  Pilate  gave  them  a  brief  and 
haughty  permission  to  do  anything  they  liked ;  for — apparently  in  the 
evening,  when  the  great  Paschal  Sabbath  was  over — they  sent  their 
guard  to  seal  the  gdlal,  and  to  watch  the  sepulcher. 

Night  passed,  and  before  the  faint  streak  of  dawn  began  to  silver 
the  darkness  of  that  first  great  Easter-day,^  the  passionate  love  of  those 
women,  who  had  lingered  latest  by  the  cross,  made  them  also  the  earliest  at 
the  tomb.     Carrying  with  them  their  precious  spices,  but  knowing  nothing  of 

1  Luke  xxiii.  54.  It  was  not  unusual  among  the  Jews  to  regard  the  sunset  of  Friday  as  the  dawn  of 
their  Sabbath. 

2  Matt.  xii.  39. 

3  Those  who  think  it  right  or  fair  to  find  and  to  press  "  discrepancies"  between  writers  who  simply  say 
the  truth  to  the  best  of  their  power  in  the  ordinary  language  of  common  life,  may  find  such  a  discrepancy 
between  the  "  it  being  yet  dark  "  of  John  xx.  i,  and  "  the  sun  having  arisen  "  of  Mark  xvi.  2.  But  such 
criticism  scarcely  deserves  serious  notice.  I  have  endeavored  throughout  the  narrative  silently  to  show 
the  perfect  possible  coherence  and  truthful  simplicity  of  the  fragmentary  Gospel  accounts.  More  than  this 
is  neither  possible  nor  necessary.  I  do  not  hold  the  mechanical  view  of  inspiration  advocated  in  Gaussen's 
Theopneustia ;  but  he  at  least  shows  how  simply  these  supposed  "discrepancies"  are  accounted  for,  and 
how  perfectly  harmless  are  the  assaults  on  Christian  faith  which  take  them  as  a  basis. 


6o8  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

the  watch  or  seal,  they  anxiously  inquired  among  themselves,  as  they  groped 
their  way  with  sad  and  timid  steps  through  the  glimmering  darkness,  "  Who 
should  roll  away  for  them  the  great  stone  which  closed  the  sepulcher?" 
The  two  Marys  were  foremost  of  this  little  devoted  band,  and  after  them 
came  Salome  and  Joanna.'  They  found  their  difficulty  solved  for  them. 
It  became  known  then,  or  afterwards,  that  some  dazzling  angelic  vision 
in  white  robes  had  terrified  the  keepers  of  the  tomb,  and  had  rolled  the 
stone  from  the  tomb  amid  the  shocks  of  earthquake.  And  as  they  came 
to  the  tomb,  there  they  too  saw  angels  in  white  apparel,  who  bade  them 
hasten  back  to  the  Apostles,  and  tell  them — and  especially  Peter — that 
Christ,  according  to  His  own  word,  had  risen  from  the  dead,  and  would 
go  before  them,  like  a  shepherd,  into  their  own  beloved  and  native  Gali- 
lee, They  hurried  back  in  a  tumult  of  rapture  and  alarm,  telling  no  one 
except  the  disciples  ;  and  even  to  the  disciples  their  words  sounded  like 
an  idle  tale.  But  Mary  of  Magdala,  who  seems  to  have  received  a  sepa- 
rate and  special  intimation,  hastened  at  once  to  Peter  and  John."  No 
sooner  had  they  received  this  startling  news  than  they  rose  to  see  with 
their  own  eyes  what  had  happened.  John  outstripped  in  speed  his  elder 
companion,  and  arriving  first,  stooped    down,  and  gazed  in  silent  wonder 

1  Mark  xvi.  i — 7,  compared  (throughout  the  paragraph)  with  John  xx.  i  ;  Luke  xxiv.  i — 10 ;  Matt, 
xxviii.   I — 7. 

2  Any  one  who  will  attentively  read  side  by  side  the  narratives  of  these  appearances  on  the  first  day  of 
the  resurrection,  will  see  that  they  have  only  been  preserved  for  us  in  general,  interblended  and  scattered 
notices  (see  Matt,  xxviii.  16  ;  Luke  xxiv.  34 ;  Acts  i.  3),  which,  in  strict  exactness,  render  it  impossible,  with- 
out many  arbitrary  suppositions,  to  produce  from  them  a  certain  narrative  of  the  order  of  events.  The 
compressions,  the  variations,  the  actual  differences,  the  subjectivity  of  the  narrators  as  affected  by  spiritual 
revelations,  render  all  harmonies  at  the  best  uncertain.  Our  belief  in  the  Resurrection,  as  an  historic  fact, 
as  absolutely  well  attested  to  us  by  subsequent  and  contemporary  circumstances  as  any  other  event  in  his- 
tory, rests  on  grounds  far  deeper,  wider,  more  spiritual,  more  eternal,  than  can  be  shaken  by  divergences 
of  which  we  can  only  say  that  they  are  not  necessarily  contradictions,  but  of  which  the  true  solution  is  no 
longer  attainable.  Hence  the  "ten  discrepancies"  which  have  been  dwelt  on  since  the  days  of  Celsus, 
have  never  for  one  hour  shaken  the  faith  of  Christendom.  The  phenomena  presented  by  the  narratives 
are  exactly  such  as  we  should  expect,  derived  as  they  are  from  different  witnesses,  preserved  at  first  in 
oral  tradition  only,  and  written  iSoo  years  ago,  at  a  period  when  miiiuli  circumslantial  accuracy,  as 
distinguished  from  perfect  truthfulness,  was  little  regarded.  St.  Paul,  surely  no  imbecile  or  credulous  en- 
thusiast, vouches  both  for  the  reality  of  the  appearances,  and  also  for  the  fact  that  the  vision  by  which  he  was 
himself  converted  came,  at  a  long  interval  after  the  rest,  to  him  as  "  to  the  abortive-born  "  of  the  Apostolic 
family  (l  Cor.  xv.  4 — 8).  If  the  narratives  of  Christ's  appearance  to  His  disciples  were  imentions,  how  came 
they  to  possess  the  severe  and  simple  character  which  shoxvs  no  tinge  of  religious  e-xcitement  ?  If  those 
appearances  were  purely  subjective,  how  can  we  account  for  their  sudden,  rapid,  and  total  cessation  ?  As 
Lange  finely  says,  the  great  fugue  of  the  first  Easter  tidings  has  not  come  to  us  as  a  "  monotonous  chorale," 
and  mere  boyish  verbal  criticism  cannot  understand  the  common  feeling  and  harmony  which  inspire  the 
individual  vibrations  of  those  enthusiastic  and  multitudinous  voices.  Professor  Westcott,  with  his  usual 
profundity  and  insight,  points  out  the  differences  of  purpose  in  the  narrative  of  the  four  Evangelists. 
St.  Matthew  dwells  chiefly  on  the  majesty  and  glory  of  the  Resurrection  ;  St.  Mark,  both  in  the  original 
part  and  in  the  addition  (Mark  xvi.  g — 20),  insists  upon  it  as  a  fatt ;  St.  Luke,  as  a  ipiriiital  necessity ; 
St.  John,  as  a  touchstone  of  character  {Inlrod.  310 — 315). 


PETER    I.EAI-S   FROM   THE   BOAT   TO    MEET   JESUS. 


THE    ASCENSION. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  609 

into  that  open  grave.  The  grave  was  empty,  and  the  linen  cerements 
were  lying  neatly  folded  each  in  its  proper  place.  Then  Peter  came  up, 
and  with  his  usual  impetuosity,  heedless  of  ceremonial  pollution,  and  of 
every  consideration  but  his  love  and  his  astonishment,  plunged  into  the 
sepulcher.  John  followed  him,  and  saw,  and  believed ;  and  the  two 
Apostles  took  back  the  undoubted  certainty  to  their  wondering  brethren.' 
In  spite  of  fear,  and  anxiety,  and  that  dull  intelligence  which,  by  their 
own  confession,  was  so  slow  to  realize  the  truths  they  had  been  taught, 
there  dawned  upon  them,  even  then,  the  trembling  hope,  which  was  so 
rapidly  to  become  the  absolute  conviction,  that  Christ  had  risen  indeed. 
That  on  that  morning  the  grave  of  Christ  was  untenanted — that  His 
body  had  not  been  removed  by  His  enemies — that  its  absence  caused  to 
His  disciples  the  profoundest  amazement,  not  unmingled,  in  the  breasts  of 
some  of  them,  with  sorrow  and  alarm  ^- — that  they  subsequently  became 
convinced,  by  repeated  proofs,  that  He  had  indeed  risen  from  the  dead — 
that  for  the  truth  of  this  belief  they  were  ready  at  all  times  themselves 
to  die — that  the  belief  effected  a  profound  and  total  change  in  their 
character,  making  the  timid  courageous,  and  the  weak  irresistible — that 
they  were  incapable  of  a  conscious  falsehood,  and  that,  even  if  it  had  not 
been  so,  a  conscious  falsehood  could  never  have  had  power  to  convince 
the  disbelief  and  regenerate  the  morality  of  the  world — that  on  this  belief 
of  the  resurrection  were  built  the  still  universal  observance  of  the  first 
day  of  the  week,  and  the  entire  foundations  of  the  Christian  Church — 
these,  at  any  rate,  are  facts  which  even  skepticism  itself,  if  it  desires  to 
be  candid,  can  hardly  fail,  however  reluctantly  and  slowly,  to   admit. 

But  as  yet  no  eye  had  seen  Him  ;  and  to  Mary  of  Magdala — to  her 
who  loved  most  because  she  had  been  forgiven  most,  and  out  of  whose 
soul,  now  ardent  as  flame  and  clear  as  crystal.  He  had  cast  seven  devils — 
was  this  glorious  honor  first  vouchsafed.'  Even  the  vision  of  angels  had 
not  soothed  the  passion  of  agitation  and  alarm  which  she  experienced 
when,  returning  once  more  to  the  tomb,  she  found  that  it  was  no  longer 
possible  for  her  to  pay  the  last  ofifices  of  devotion  and  tenderness  to  the 
crucified  body  of  her  Lord.     From    her    impassioned    soul    not    even  the 

1  Compare  the  exactly  siiiilar  feature  in  the  character  of  the  two  Apostles,  in  John  xxi.  7. 

2  And  that  (as  the  Evangelists  honestly  admit),  in  spite  of  such  repeated  forewarnings  that  it  should 
be  so,  as  we  find  in  John  ii.  18 — 22  ;  vi.  61 — 64  ;  x.  17,  18  ;  xiii.  31  ;  Matt.  xii.  38 — 42  ;  xvi.  13 — 27  ;  xvii. 
1 — 9  ;  xxvi.  63,  64  ;  Mark  ix.  30 — 32  ;  x.  32 — 34  ;  Luke  ix.  43 — 45.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  they  them- 
selves may  not  have  heard  all  of  these  predictions,  but  they  had  heard  enough  to  cause  our  Lord's  exclam- 
ation, "  O  unintelligent,  and  slow  in  heart  to  believe"  (Luke  xxiv.  25). 

3  John  XX.  II — 18.     Mark  xvi.  g — 20  is  canonical,  but  almost  certainly  unauthentic. 
39 


6io  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

white-robed  visions  and  angel  voices  could  expel  the  anguish  which  she 
experienced  in  the  one  haunting  thought,  "  They  have  taken  away  my 
Lord  out  of  the  sepulcher,  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him." 
With  her  whole  heart  absorbed  in  this  thought  she  turned  away — and  lo ! 
Jesus  Himself  standing  before  her.  It  was  Jesus,  but  not  as  she  had 
known  Him.  There  was  something  spiritual,  something  not  of  earth,  in 
that  risen  and  glorified  body.  Some  accident  of  dress,  or  appearance, 
made  her  fancy  that  it  was  the  keeper  of  the  garden,  and  in  the  eager 
hope  that  He  can  explain  to  her  the  secret  of  that  empty  and  angel- 
haunted  grave,  she  exclaims  to  Him  in  an  agony  of  appeal — turning  her 
head  aside  as  she  addressed  Him,  perhaps  that  she  might  hide  her 
streaming  tears — "  Oh,  sir,  if  you  took  Him  away,  tell  me  where  you 
put  Him,  and  I  will  take  Him." 

Jesus  saith  to  her,   "  MARY  !" 

That  one  word,  in  those  awful  yet  tender  tones  of  voice,  at  once 
penetrated  to  her  heart.  Turning  towards  Him,  trying  apparently  to 
dasp  His  feet  or  the  hem  of  His  garment,  she  cried  to  Him  in  her 
native  Aramaic,  "Rabboni!"  "Oh,  my  Master!"  and  then  remained 
speechless  with  her  transport.  Jesus  Himself  gently  checked  the  passion 
of  her  enthusiasm.  "Cling  not  to  Me,"'  He  exclaimed,  "for  not  yet 
have  I  ascended  to  the  Father ;  but  go  to  My  brethren,  and  say  to 
them,  I  am  ascending  to  My  Father  and  your  Father,  and  My  God  and 
your  God."  Awe-struck,  she  hastened  to  obey.  She  repeated  to  them 
that  solemn  message — and  through  all  future  ages  has  thrilled  that  first 
utterance,  which  made  on  the  minds  of  those  who  heard  it  so  indelible 
an  impression — "I   have  seen  the  Lord!" 

2.  Nor  was  her  testimony  unsupported.  Jesus  met  the  other  women 
also,  and  said  to  them,  "All  hail!"  Terror  mingled  with  their  emotion, 
as  they  clasped  His  feet.  "Fear  not,"  He  said  to  them;  "go,  bid  My 
brethren  that  they  depart  into  Galilee,  and  there  shall  they  see  Me."" 

It  was  useless  for  the  guards  to  stay  beside  an  empty  grave.  With 
fear  for  the  consequences,  and  horror  at  all  that  they  had  seen,  they  fled 
to  the  members  of  the  Sanhedrin  who  had  given  them  their  secret  com- 
mission. To  these  hardened  hearts  belief  and  investigation  were  alike 
out  of  the  question.       Their    only  refuge  seemed    to    be    in    lies.       They 

1  John  XX.  17.  It  meant  that  the  day  for  personal,  physical  presence,  for  merely  human  affection,  for 
the  grasp  of  human  tenderness,  was  over  now.  Henceforth.  He  was  to  be  with  His  people  more  nearly, 
more  intimately,  because  in  spirii. 

2  Matt,  xxviii.  9,  10. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  6ll 

instantly  tried  to  hush  up  the  whole  matter.  They  suggested  to  the 
soldiers  that  they  must  have  slept,  and  that  while  they  did  so  the  disciples 
had  stolen  the  body  of  Jesus."  But  such  a  tale  was  too  infamous  for 
credence,  and  too  ridiculous  for  publicity.  If  it  became  known,  nothino- 
could  have  saved  these  soldiers,  supposing  them  to  have  been  Romans, 
from  disgrace  and  execution.  The  Sadducees  therefore  bribed  the  men 
to  consult  their  common  interests  by  burying  the  whole  matter  in  secrecy 
and  silence.  It  was  only  gradually  and  later,  and  to  the  initiated,  that  the 
base  calumny  was  spread.  Within  six  weeks  of  the  resurrection,  that 
great  event  was  the  unshaken  faith  of  every  Christian  ;  within  a  few  years 
of  the  event  the  palpable  historic  proofs  of  it  and  the  numerous  testi- 
monies of  its  reality — strengthened  by  a  memorable  vision  vouchsafed  to 
himself — had  won  assent  from  the  acute  and  noble  intellect  of  a  youno- 
Pharisaic  zealot  and  persecutor  whose  name  was  Saul'  But  it  was  only 
in  posthumous  and  subterranean  whispers  that  the  dark  falsehood  was 
disseminated  which  was  intended  to  counteract  this  overwhelming  evi- 
dence. St  Matthew  says  that  when  he  wrote  his  Gospel  it  was  still 
commonly  bruited  among  the  Jews.  It  continued  to  be  received  among 
them  for  centuries,  and  is  one  of  the  blaspheming  follies  repeated  and 
amplified  twelve  centuries  afterwards  in  the    Toldoth  Jeshu. 

3.  The  third  appearance  of  Jesus  was  to  Peter.  The  details  of  it  are 
wholly  unknown  to  us.'  They  may  have  been  of  a  nature  too  personal  to 
have  been  revealed.  The  fact  rests  on  the  express  testimony  of  St.  Luke 
and  of  St.    Paul. 

4.  On  the  same  day  the  Lord's  fourth  appearance  was  accompanied 
with  circumstances  of  the  deepest  interest.  Two  of  the  disciples  were 
on  their  way  to  a  village  named  Emmaus,*  of  uncertain  site,  but  about 
eight  miles  from  Jerusalem,  and  were  discoursing  with  sad  and  anxious 
hearts  on  the  awful  incidents  of  the  last  two  days,  when  a  Stranger 
joined  them,  and  asked  them  the  cause  of  their  clouded  looks  and  anxious 

1  Matt,  xxviii.  11—15.  Those  who  are  shocked  at  this  suggested  possibility  of  deceit  on  the  part  of  a 
few  hard,  worldly,  and  infatuated  Sanhedrists,  do  not  shrink  from  insinuating  that  the  faith  of  Christen, 
dom  was  founded  on  most  facile  and  reprehensible  credulity,  almost  amounting  to  conscious  deception  by 
men  who  died  for  the  truth  of  what  they  asserted,  and  who  have  taught  the  spirit  of  truthfulness  as  a 
primary  duty  of  the  religion  which  they  preached. 

2  Rom.  vi.  4 ;  Eph.  i.  20  ;  Gal.  i.  i  ;  i  Cor,  xv.  4—8,  &c.  The  latter  is  the  earliest  -written  allusion  to 
the  resurrection  (A.D.  54). 

3  Luke  xxiv.  34  ;  I  Cor.  xv.  5. 

4  Emmaus  can  hardly  be  Am  was  (Nicopolis),  which  is  160  stades  (about  twenty-two  miles)  from 
Jerusalem.  The  name  means  "  warm  springs."  Culonieh  seems  to  be  a  more  likely  site,  but  nothing 
whatever  depends  on  the  identification  of  a  locality  so  incidentally  alluded  to. 


6l2  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

words.  They  stopped,  and  looked  at  this  unknown  traveler  with  a 
dubious  and  unfriendly  glance;'  and  when  one  of  the  two,  whose  name 
was  Cleopas,'  spoke  in  reply,  there  is  a  touch  of  surprise  and  suspicion 
in  the  answer  which  he  ventured  to  give.  "  Dost  thou  live  alone  as  a 
stranger  in  Jerusalem,  and  dost  thou  not  know  what  things  happened 
there  in  these  last  days?"  "  What  things  ?"  He  asked  them.  Then  they 
told  Him  how  all  their  yearning  hopes  that  Jesus  had  been  the  great 
Prophet  who  should  redeem  His  people  had  been  dashed  to  the  earth, 
and  how  all  His  mighty  deeds  before  God  and  the  people  had  ended 
two  days  back  on  the  shameful  cross.  They  described  the  feeling  of 
amazement  with  which,  on  this  the  third  day,  they  had  heard  the  women's 
rumors  of  angel  visions,  and  the  certain  testimony  of  some  of  their 
brethren  that  the  tomb  was  empty  now.  "  But,"  added  the  speaker  with 
a  sigh  of  incredulity  and  sorrow — "but  Him  they  saw  not." 

Then  reproaching  them  with  the  dullness  of  their  intelligence  and 
their  affections,  the  Stranger  showed  them  how  through  all  the  Old  Tes- 
tament from  Moses  onwards  there  was  one  long  prophecy  of  the  sufTer- 
ings  no  less  than  of  the  glory  of  Christ.  In  such  high  converse  they 
drew  near  to  Emmaus,  and  the  Stranger  seemed  to  be  going  onwards, 
but  they  pressed  Him  to  stay,  and  as  they  sat  down  to  their  simple 
meal,  and  He  blessed  and  brake  the  bread,  suddenly  their  eyes  were 
opened,  and  in  spite  of  the  altered  form,^  they  recognized  that  He  who 
was  with  them  was  the  Lord.  But  even  as  they  recognized  Him,  He 
was  with  them  no  longer.  "  Did  not  our  heart  burn  within  us,"  they 
exclaimed  to  each  other,  "while  He  was  speaking  with  us  in  the  way, 
while  He  was  opening  to  us  the  Scriptures  ? "  Rising  instantly,  they 
returned  to  Jerusalem  with  the  strange  and  joyous  tidings.  They  found 
no  dubious  listeners  now.  They,  too,  were  received  with  the  rapturous 
affirmation,   "The  Lord  is  risen  indeed,  and  hath  appeared  unto  Simon!" 

5.  Once  more,  for  the  fifth  time  on  that  eternally  memorable  Easter 
day,  Jesus  manifested  Himself  to  His  disciples.  Ten  of  them  were  sit- 
ting together,  with  doors  closed  for  fear  of  the  Jews.     As  they  exchanged 

1  Luke  xxiv.  13 — 35.  This,  as  well  as  the  somewhat  emphatic  answer  of  Cleopas,  shows  that  they  were 
not  quite  at  their  ease  at  the  Stranger's  intervention.  After  the  recent  events  such  caution  was  very 
natural. 

2  If,  as  Keim,  &c.,  suppose,  the  story  is  mythic,  &c.,  why  was  so  obscure  a  name  as  Cleopas  chosen  to 
authenticate  it  ?  and  why  was  the  other  disciple  left  nameless?  Would  it  not  have  been  just  as  easy  to 
select  two  of  the  most  prominent  Apostles  ?  It  is  a  mere  assumption  that  Cleopas  (or  Cleopater)  was  the 
same  as  Clopas,  or  Alphseus. 

3  Mark  xvi.  12. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  613 

and  discussed  their  happy  intelligence,  Jesus  Himself  stood  in  the  midst 
of  them,  with  the  words,  "  Peace  be  with  you."  The  unwonted  aspect  of 
that  glorified  body — the  awful  significance  of  the  fact  that  He  had  risen 
from  the  dead — scared  and  frightened  them.  The  presence  of  their  Lord 
was  indeed  corporeal,  but  it  was  changed.  They  thought  that  it  was  a 
spirit  which  was  standing  before  them.  "  Why  are  ye  troubled  ?"  He  asked, 
"and  why  do  anxious  doubts  rise  in  your  hearts?  See  my  hands  and  my 
feet,  that  it  is  I  ;  handle  me,  and  see  ;  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesh  and 
bones  as  ye  see  me  have."  Even  while  He  spoke  He  showed  them  His 
hands  and  His  side.  And  then,  while  joy,  amazement,  incredulity,  were 
all  struggling  in  their  hearts.  He  asked  them  if  they  had  there  anything 
to  eat ;  and  yet  further  to  assure  them,  ate  a  piece  of  broiled  fish  in 
their  presence.  Then  once  more  He  said,  "  Peace  be  unto  you.  As  my 
Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you."  Breathing  on  them.  He 
said,  "  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost.  Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are 
remitted  to  them :  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained." 

6.  One  only  of  the  Apostles  had  been  absent — Thomas  the  Twin. 
His  character,  as  we  have  seen  already,  was  affectionate,  but  melancholy. 
To  him  the  news  seemed  too  good  to  be  true.  In  vain  did  the  other 
disciples  assure  him,  "We  have  seen  the  Lord."  Happily  for  us,  though 
less  happily  for 'him,  he  declared  with  strong  asseveration  that  nothing 
would  convince  him,  short  of  actually  putting  his  own  finger  into  the 
print  of  the  nails,  and  his  hands  into  His  side.  A  week  passed,  and  the 
faithfully-recorded  doubts  of  the  anxious  Apostle  remained  unsatisfied. 
On  the  eighth,  or,  as  we  should  say,  on  the  seventh  day  afterwards ' — 
for  already  the  resurrection  had  made  the  first  day  of  the  week  sacred 
to  the  hearts  of  the  Apostles— the  eleven  were  again  assembled  within 
closed  doors.  Once  more  Jesus  appeared  to  them,  and  after  His  usual 
gentle  and  solemn  blessing,  called  Thomas,  and  bade  him  stretch  forth 
his  finger,  and  put  it  in  the  print  of  the  nails,  and  to  thrust  his  hand 
into  the  spear-wound  of  His  side,  and  to  be  "not  faithless,  but  be- 
lieving." "My  Lord  and  my  God!"  exclaimed  the  incredulous  Apostle, 
with  a  burst  of  conviction.  "  Because  thou  hast  seen  Me,"  said  Jesus, 
"thou  hast  believed;  blessed  are  they  who  saw  not  and  yet  believed." 

7.  The  next  appearance    of    the    risen    Saviour  was  to  seven    of   the 

1  Why  did  they  not  go  to  Galilee  immediately  on  receiving  our  Lord  s  message  ?  The  circumstance  is 
unexplained,  for  the  identification  of  Galilee  with  the  peak  of  the  Mount  of  Olives — now  called  Viri  Galilaei, 
from  Acts  i.  11 — is  wholly  absurd.  Perhaps  the  entire  message  of  Jejus  to  them  is  not  recorded  ;  perhaps 
they  awaited  the  end  of  the  feast. 


6 14  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

Apostles  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee — Simon,  Thomas,  Nathanael,  the  sons  of 
Zebedee,  and  two  others — not  improbably  Philip  and  Andrew — who  are 
not  named."  A  pause  had  occurred  in  the  visits  of  Jesus,  and  before 
they  returned  to  Jerusalem  at  Pentecost  to  receive  the  promised  out- 
pouring of  the  Spirit,  Simon  said  that  he  should  resume  for  the  day  his 
old  trade  of  a  fisherman.  There  was  no  longer  a  common  purse,  and  as 
their  means  of  subsistence  were  gone,  this  seemed  to  be  the  only  obvious 
way  of  obtaining  an  honest  maintenance.  The  others  proposed  to  join 
him,  and  they  set  sail  in  the  evening  because  night  is  the  best  time  for 
fishing.  All  night  they  toiled  in  vain.  At  early  dawn,  in  the  misty 
twilight,  there  stood  on  the  shore  the  figure  of  One  whom  they  did 
not  recognize.  A  voice  asked  them  if  they  had  caught  anything.  '*  No," 
was  the  despondent  answer.  "  Fling  your  net  to  the  right  side  of  the 
vessel,  and  ye  shall  find."  They  made  the  cast,  and  instantly  were 
scarcely  able  to  draw  the  net  from  the  multitude  of  fishes.  The  incident 
awoke,  with  overwhelming  force,  the  memory  of  earlier  days.  "  It  is  the 
Lord,"  whispered  John  to  Peter  ;  and  instantly  the  warm-hearted  enthu- 
siast, tightening  his  fisher's  tunic '  round  his  loins,  leaped  into  the  sea, 
to  swim  across  the  hundred  yards  which  separated  him  from  Jesus,  and 
cast  himself,  all  wet  from  the  waves,  before  His  feet.  More  slowly  the 
others  followed,  dragging  the  strained  but  unbroken  net,  with  its  153  fishes. 
A  wood  fire  was  burning  on  the  strand,  some  bread  lay  beside  it,  and 
some  fish  were  being  broiled  on  the  glowing  embers.  It  is  a  sight  which 
may  often  be  seen  to  this  day  by  the  shores  of  Galilee.  And  He  who 
stood  beside  it  bade  them  bring  more  fish  of  those  which  they  had 
caught.  Instantly  Simon  started  up,  and  helped  with  his  strong  arm  to 
drag  the  net  ashore.  And  He  whom  they  all  knew  to  be  the  Lord,  but 
whose  voice  and  aspect  made  their  hearts  so  still  with  awful  reverence 
that  they  dared  not  question  Him,  bade  them  "Come  and  breakfast," 
and  distributed  to  them  the  bread  and  fish. 

The  happy  meal  ended  in  silence,  and  then  Jesus  said  to  His  weak  but 
fond  Apostle,  "  Simon  " — (it  was  no  time  as  yet  to  restore  to  him  the 
name  of  Peter) — "Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  honorest  thou  Me  more  than 
these  ?  " 

"  Yea,   Lord,  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee." 

"  Feed  My  little  lambs." 

1  John  xxi.  I — 24. 

2  It  is  very  common  in  the  East  to  work  naked,  or  with  nothing  but  a  cloth  round  the  waist. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  615 

Simon  had  felt  in  his  inmost  heart  what  was  meant  by  that  kind 
rebuke—"  more  than  these."  It  called  back  to  his  penitent  soul  those 
boastful  words,  uttered  so  confidently  among  his  brethren,  "  Although  all 
shall  be  offended,  yet  will  not  I,"  Failure  had  taught  him  humility,  and 
therefore  he  will  neither  claim  a  pre-eminence  in  affection,  nor  adopt  the 
word  of  the  Saviour's  question  (dyaTtas),  which  involved  deep  honor  and 
devotion  and  esteem  ;  but  will  substitute  for  it  that  weaker  word,  which 
yet  best  expressed  the  warm  human  affection  of  his  heart.  And  the  next 
time  the  question  reminded  him  less  painfully  of  his  old  self-confidence, 
for  Jesus  said  to  him  only — 

"Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  honorest  thou  Me?" 

Again  the  Apostle    humbly  answered  in  the  same  words  as  before — 

"  Yea,   Lord,  Thou  knowest  that  I   love  Thee." 

"Tend  my  sheep." 

But  Simon  had  thrice  denied,  and  therefore  it  was  fitting  that  he 
should  thrice  confess.  Again,  after  a  brief  pause,  came  the  question — 
and  this  time  with  the  weaker  but  warmer  word  which  the  Apostle  him- 
self had  chosen — 

"Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  /ovcsi  thou  Me?" 

And  Simon,  deeply  humbled  and  distressed,  exclaimed,  "  Lord,  Thou 
knowest  all  things  ;  Thou  seest  that  I   love  Thee." 

"  Feed  my  beloved  sheep." '  Then  very  solemnly  He  added,  "  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  When  thou  wast  younger  thou  didst  gird  thyself, 
and  walk  where  thou  wouldest ;  but  when  thou  art  old  thou  shalt  stretch 
out  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and  shall  lead  thee  where 
thou  wiliest  not." 

The  Apostle  understood  Him;  he  knew  that  this  implied  the  years  of 
his  future  service,  the  pangs  of  his  future  martyrdom  ;  but  now  he  was  no 
longer  "Simon,"  but  "  Peter" — the  heart  of  rock  was  in  him;  he  was  ready, 
even  to  the  death,  to  obey  the  voice  which  said  to  him,  "  Follow  Me." 
While  the  conversation  had  been  taking  place  he  had  been  walking  by  the 
side  of  Jesus,  a  few  steps  in  front  of  his  comrades.  Looking  back  he  saw 
John,  his  only  favorite  companion,  and  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  slowly 
following  them.  Pointing  to  him,  he  asked,  "  Lord,  and  what  shall  he  do  ?  " 
The  answer  checked  the  spirit  of  idle  curiosity — "  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till 
I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?  Follow  ///f«  Me."  Peter  dared  ask  no 
more,  and  the    answer — which  was    intentionally  vague — led    to    the  wide 

I   John  xxi.  17. 


6l6  THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 

misapprehension  prevalent  in  the  early  Church,  that  John  was  not  to  die 
until  Jesus  came.  The  Apostle  quietly  corrects  the  error  by  quoting  the 
exact  words  of  the  risen  Christ.  The  manner  of  his  death  we  do  not 
know,  but  we  know  that  he  outlived  all  his  brother  disciples,  and  that 
he  survived  that  terrible  overthrow  of  his  nation  which,  since  it  rendered 
impossible  a  strict  obedience  to  the  institutions  of  the  Old  Covenant,  and 
opened  throughout  the  world  an  unimpeded  path  for  the  establishment 
of  the  New  Commandment  and  the  Kingdom  not  of  earth,  was — in  a 
sense  more  true  than  any  other  event  in  human  history — a  second  com- 
ing of  the  Lord. 

8.  It  may  have  been  on  this  occasion  that  Jesus  told  His  disciples  of 
the  mountain  in  Galilee,  where  He  would  meet  all  who  knew  and  loved  Him 
for  the  last  time.  Whether  it  was  Tabor,  or  the  Mountain  of  Beatitudes, 
we  do  not  know,  but  more  than  five  hundred  of  His  disciples  collected 
at  the  given  time  with  the  eleven,  and  received  from  Jesus  His  last  com- 
mands, to  teach  and  baptize  throughout  all  nations  ;  and  the  last  promise, 
that  He  would  be  with  them  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.'  Writing 
more  than  twenty  years  after  this  time,  St.  Paul  gives  us  the  remarkable 
testimony,  that  the  greater  number  of  these  eye-witnesses  of  the  resur- 
rection were  yet  alive,  and  that  some  only  were  "  fallen  asleep." 

9.  A  ninth  appearance  of  Jesus  is  unrecorded  in  the  Gospels,  and  is 
known  to  us  from  a  single  allusion  in  St.  Paul  alone.  "  I  delivered  unto 
you,"  he  writes  to  the  Corinthians,'  that  which  also  I  received,  how  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins,  according  to  the  Scriptures  ;  and  that  He  was 
buried,  and  that  He  rose  again  the  third  day,  according  to  the  Scriptures  : 
and  that  He  was  seen  of  Cephas,  then  of  the  Twelve  :  after  that,  he 
was  seen  of  above  five  hundred  brethren  at  once  :  .  .  .  .  after  that. 
He  was  seen  of  James ;  then  of  all  the  Apostles.  And  last  of  all  He 
appeared  to  me  also,  as  to  the  abortive-born  (of  the  Apostolic  family)." 
Respecting  this  appearance  to  James  we  know  nothing  further,  unless 
there  be  any  basis  of  true  tradition  in  the  story  preserved  to  us  in  the 
Gospel  of  the  Hebrews.  We  are  there  told  that  James,  the  first  Bishop 
of  Jerusalem,  and  the  Lord's  brother,^  had,  after  the  Last  Supper,  taken 

1  Matt,  xxviii.  17  can  only  mean  "but  some  doubted" — not,  as  Wetstein  and  others  take  it, 
whether  they  should  worship  or  not,  but  respecting  the  whole  scene.  All  may  not  have  stood  near  to 
Him,  and  even  if  they  did,  we  have  seen  in  four  previous  instances  (Matt,  xxviii.  17  ;  Luke  xxiv.  16  ;  id. 
37  ;  John  xxi.  4)  that  there  was  something  unusual  and  not  instantly  recognizable  in  His  resurrection 
body. 

2  I  Cor.  XV.  3 — 8. 

3  Or  it  may  possibly  have  been  James  the  son  of  Zebedee. 


THE  RESURRECTION.  617 

a  solemn  vow  that  he  would  neither  eat  nor  drink  until  he  had  seen 
Jesus  risen  from  the  dead.  Early,  therefore,  after  His  resurrection,  Jesus, 
after  He  had  given  the  sindoti  to  the  servant  of  the  priest,  had  a  table 
with  bread  brought  out,  blessed  the  bread,  and  gave  it  to  James,  with 
the  words,  "  Eat  thy  bread  now,  my  brother,  since  the  Son  of  Man  has 
risen  from  the  dead." 

10.  Forty  days  had  now  elapsed  since  the  Crucifixion.  During  those 
forty  days  nine  times  had  He  been  visibly  present  to  human  eyes,  and 
had  been  touched  by  human  hands.  But  His  body  had  not  been  merely 
the  human  body,  nor  liable  to  merely  human  laws,  nor  had  He  lived 
during  those  days  the  life  of  men.  The  time  had  now  come  when  His 
earthly  presence  should  be  taken  away  from  them  for  ever,  until  He 
returned  in  glory  to  judge  the  world.  He  met  them  in  Jerusalem,  and 
as  He  led  them  with  Him  towards  Bethany,'  He  bade  them  wait  in  the 
Holy  City  until  they  had  received  the  promise  of  the  Spirit.  He 
checked  their  eager  inquiry  about  the  times  and  the  seasons,  and  bade 
them  be  His  witnesses  in  all  the  world.  These  last  farewells  must  have 
been  uttered  in  some  of  the  wild  secluded  upland  country  that  surrounds 
the  little  village ;  =  and  when  they  were  over.  He  lifted  up  His  hands 
and  blessed  them,  and,  even  as  He  blessed  them,  was  parted  from  them, 
and  as  He  passed  from  before  their  yearning  eyes  "a  cloud  received 
Him  out  of  their  sight." 

Between  us  and  His  visible  presence — between  us  and  that  glorified 
Redeemer  who  now  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God— that  cloud  still 
rolls.  But  the  eye  of  Faith  can  pierce  it ;  the  incense  of  true  prayer 
can  rise  above  it  ;  through  it  the  dew  of  blessing  can  descend.  And  if 
He  is  gone  away,  yet  He  has  given  us  in  His  Holy  Spirit  a  nearer 
sense  of  His  presence,  a  closer  infolding  in  the  arms  of  His  tenderness, 
than  we  could  have  enjoyed  even  if  we  had  lived  with  Him  of  old  in 
the  home  of  Nazareth,  or  sailed  with    Him    in    the    little    boat  over   the 

crystal  waters  of  Gennesareth.     We  may  be  as  near  to  Him  at  all  times 

and  more  than  all  when  we  kneel  down  to  pray — as  the  beloved  disciple 
was  when  he  laid  his  head  upon  His  breast.  The  word  of  God  is  very 
nigh  us,  even  in  our  mouths  and  in  our  hearts.  To  ears  that  have  been 
closed  His  voice  may  seem  indeed  to  sound  no  longer.     The  loud  noises 

1  Luke  xxiv.  50. 

2  "  It  was  solitude  and  retirement  in  which  Jesus  kept  His  vigils  :  the  desert  places  heard  Him  pray  ; 
in  a  privacy  He  was  born  ;  in  the  wilderness  He  fed  His  thousands  ;  upon  a  mountain  apart  He  was 
transfigured  ;  upon  a  mountain  He  died  ;  and  from  a  mountain  He  ascended  to  His  Father." 


6i8 


THE  PRINCE  OF  GLORY. 


of  War  may  shake  the  world  ;  the  eager  calls  of  Avarice  and  of  Pleasure 
may  drown  the  gentle  utterance  which  bids  us  "  Follow  Me  ; "  after  two 
thousand  years  of  Christianity  the  incredulous  murmurs  of  an  impatient 
skepticism  may  make  it  scarcely  possible  for  Faith  to  repeat,  without 
insult,  the  creed  which  has  been  the  regeneration  of  the  world.  Ay,  and 
sadder  even  than  this,  every  now  and  then  may  be  heard,  even  in 
Christian  England,  the  insolence  of  some  blaspheming  tongue  which  still 
scoffs  at  the  Son  of  God  as  He  lies  in  the  agony  of  the  garden,  or 
breathes  His  last  sigh  upon  the  bitter  tree.  But  the  secret  of  cne  Lord 
is  with  them  that  fear  Him,  and  He  will  show  them  His  covenant.  To 
all  who  will  listen  He  still  speaks.  He  promised  to  be  with  us  always, 
even  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and  we  have  not  found  His  promise  fail. 
It  was  but  for  thirty-three  short  years  of  a  short  lifetime  that  He  lived 
on  earth  ;  it  was  but  for  three  broken  and  troubled  years  that  He 
preached  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  ;  but  for  ever,  even  until  all  the 
.(^ons  have  been  closed,  and  the  earth  itself,  with  the  heavens  that  now 
are,  have  passed  away,  shall  every  one  of  His  true  and  faithful  children 
find  peace  and  hope  and  forgiveness  in  His  name,  and  that  name  shall 
be  called  Emmanuel,  which  is,  being  interpreted, 

"God  with  us," 


RESTING  AT  THE  CROSS. 


KnUtPATRICK.    »fpm. 


T°  *H°'°*^  of  Christ,  my  Sa  •  \aoar  I  had  brought  my  wea-ry  sou] 
2.  At  the  cross, whUe  meekly  bow  ing,  Je  •  sua,  snril  -  ing,  bade  me  live^ 
:S.  At      the  cross  I'mcalm-ly     trust-  ing,       Ev  -  hy     mo-raentnow    i*     sweet; 


Bur -den'd,  faint,  and  broken  heart  •  ed,  Pray-ing,  "J&-8U8  make  me  whole" 
I  have  died  for  your  transgres  •  ftons.  And  I  free-ly  all  for  fllv«," 
I        am   taat-ing     of    his    glo     •     ry,       I       am    rest- ing       at       hiji      Teet 


■2 

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I'm   rest-iug  at     the  cross,  I'm    resting  at     the  cross,  I'm  rest-ing     at     the 


I  LO^e  TO  TELU  THE  STORY. 


9ni'RAT«1UinccT 


W».C.  PUcni 


th*IMi4  fc?  ipMiAi  kniut*' 


I^^X- 


